


never take friendship personal

by unholyconfessions (orphan_account)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison Has Anxiety Problems, Allison and Stiles are Twins, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family Dynamics, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, One Big Happy Family, Slow Build, Stiles Likes To Bake, Tumblr Prompt, Underage Drinking, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:20:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 50,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/unholyconfessions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Allison are going through a rough time. A distant dad, unrequited love, a new guy in town... </p><p>But if Stiles is sure of something, it's that they're going to be fine. They always are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. something more than what you try to hide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TakeCareOfYouBaby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakeCareOfYouBaby/gifts).



> Filling a Tumblr prompt by bateli1997:
> 
> _Can you do a Stackson/Allydia fic where Stiles and Allison Argent are twins and they both fall in love with the other's best friend. She with Lydia Martin and he with Jackson Whittemore._
> 
> Title is from a song of the same name by Anberlin. Plot is from a dark corner in my mind. Betaing is by retrogradefurnace, who made an awesome work on the story. A round of applause to her! And any remaining mistakes are mine. So, if you catch anything let me know.
> 
> Enjoy and feedback is always appreciated!

Allison stops inches away from Stiles’ door, arm stretched out as her fingers wrap around the doorknob, eyes closing at the feel of cold metal against her skin. The muscles on her forearm twitch, eager to twist and open it, but not quite yet. She draws in a breath and holds it, letting her arm fall to her side.

“I probably shouldn’t,” she says to herself, voice barely over a whisper. She nods, letting that breath go before turning around to leave.

The sound of the door opening makes her stop in her tracks, with the hope of hearing Stiles’ voice and not Lydia’s. _God, not Lydia’s_. 

“Al?” 

Allison turns around, arms tangling around themselves over her chest as she feigns a smile. “Hey,” she says, gesturing with a hand. “I was just—”

“She’s not here.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_.” Stiles shakes his head, a light chuckle escaping his chest as he steps aside and throws his thumb over a shoulder in the direction of the door. There’s a silent question dancing in his eyes, and Allison takes a moment to consider before nodding and coming in. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Allison says, lowering herself on his bed. “Yeah. I’m fine. I just—” Her eyes trail up his chest and she frowns, rubbing at her temple. “Sorry. I just thought I’d stop by.”

“Well, you’re here.” Stiles leans against his desk, mimicking her posture as he crosses his arms tightly against his chest. “And she’s not, Al. Lydia’s not here.”

“I heard it the first time,” she says, her tone sharper than she intended, but Stiles doesn’t even blink. Allison opens her mouth to apologize, but decides against it as the muscles twitch under the skin on Stiles’ arm.

“I don’t get you.”

 _Me neither._ Allison closes her eyes, focusing on the sound of her heart echoing in her skull. One, two, three. This time, when she turns her attention back to him, the lines of his shoulders are smoother, less tense.

“Are you with her?”

“What?”

“Are you _with_ her, Stiles?” Allison says, fighting the whirlwind of emotions trapped in her chest. _Tell me you’re not,_ is what she doesn’t say. _Tell me you haven’t touched her. Not yet. Not in that way._

“Are you high?” Stiles wipes at his face. “No. I’m not. I’m not with her. Jesus Christ, Al. She’s my friend. Has been since third grade. I’m _not_ with her.”

Allison nods, smiles, despite the sour taste on her tongue. “But you love her,” she says, and it’s not supposed to be a question, because she knows. Stiles loves Lydia. Lydia loves Stiles. They’d give their life for one another. “You’ve always loved her.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t mean anything.” Stiles lets out a sigh, walking toward Allison. He crouches in front of her, his warm hands closing around her knees. “I love _you_ because you’re my twin. I love Lydia because she’s my best friend. Nothing else, alright? Besides, I don’t think I’d be able to handle a girl whose brain is more hyperactive than mine.” Allison frowns, a smile playing on her lips. Stiles smiles back. “You’ll probably understand that when you get to know her better. You’ll get to know her better, right?”

Allison laughs, letting her forehead fall to Stiles’ shoulder. “I’ve been trying,” she says, unable to hide the exhaustion dripping from her words. "For a while now."

“Good,” Stiles says, smiling against Allison’s cheek as his arm wraps around her. “She’s single.”

***

Allison wakes up to the sound of Stiles' alarm clock in the morning. She buries her face deeper into the pillow, blindly reaching for the nightstand until she knocks the noisy gadget to the ground. She draws in a breath, taking in the scent of Stiles’ shampoo and something spicy-sweet – Lydia.

The thought makes her jolt upright, propping herself up on her elbows, sleep-crusted eyes wide in realization. She glances around Stiles’ room to see no one there, but Stiles’ backpack sits on his desk chair where it hadn’t been the night before.

“Stiles,” she says, brushing her hair out of her eyes as she flings her legs over the edge of the bed. The blinds are open, allowing rays of sunlight to shine into the room and sting her eyes. She has to rub at them before she calls out again, “Stiles.”

Stiles’ head sticks out from the gap at the door, flour covering his nose and cheeks as he waves an orange silicone spatula at her. “Hey. What’s up?”

Allison shakes her head, not fighting a laugh. “Are you baking?” she says, picking herself up and smoothing out her clothes.

“Yeah.”

“It’s the first day of _school_ , Stiles.”

“Exactly,” Stiles says, raising his eyebrows. “But it’s blueberry muffins. I know you love ‘em.”

Allison opens the door further, bringing Stiles down from where he was leaning on the door in the process. She smiles at him. “Yeah, I do.”

As she walks towards her room at the end of the hall, Stiles shouts after her, “Hey.” She stops to look over her shoulder. Stiles holds up the spatula. “It matches your socks.”

Allison frowns, looking down at her feet and wriggling her toes. 

It does.

***

Allison has heard people say things about Lydia, and some of them she’s experienced for herself.

Lydia can be manipulative on the verge of irritatingly persuasive when it suits her needs. Even with Stiles, and especially with people she’s planning to sleep with, nothing stands in her way. She’s ambitious and Allison can relate to that, but Lydia will crush your soul if she needs to.

Stiles calls her cold-hearted sometimes. Allison agrees, despite the heat that insists on crawling up her neck whenever Lydia is walking around the house, in and out of Stiles’ bedroom like she owns it. Allison also thinks she’s superficial and overindulgent—which seems to be the consensus in Beacon Hills—but still Lydia manages to not be hated.

Not by Allison, at least. Or Stiles, for that matter.

Lydia’s flaws seem to complement her qualities, or they’re overshadowed by her qualities. Allison can’t be sure. 

“You have good taste.”

Allison jumps back from her locker, letting the book she was holding fall to the ground with a thud. She freezes on the spot, watching as the guy bows down to pick it up. “I’m sorry?” is all she can say, eyes glued to the blue stare in front of her.

“You’re into her,” he says, nodding in Lydia’s direction. Allison glances over her shoulder at Lydia, who catches her gaze and waves with a smirk.

Allison nods a little too quickly, making the floor tip under her feet for a moment. “Yeah,” she says, then adds, rubbing between her eyebrows, “I mean, no.” 

“Right.”

“I—”

“You want her.”

“No, I don’t.” Allison fakes a smile and fumbles with the strap of her bag. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are and really I need to go.”

“No, you don’t, Al.”

“What did you call me?”

The guy’s eyebrows fly up just as a smirk, much like Lydia’s, shows on his lips. He points at the mess of stickers and messages written in permanent marker on the inside of Allison’s locker.

Allison turns to look at it. It reads, _I love you, Al!_ several times with a bunch of superhero stickers stuck and smiley faces drawn around them; Stiles’ name sits at the bottom. She can’t remember when he put it there, or why, but it never fails to get a smile out of her. 

Maybe _that’s_ why.

She clears her throat and gazes back at the guy, frowning. “Don’t call me that,” she says, straightening her back. “It’s Allison.”

He doesn’t seem offended by it and shrugs one shoulder. “Fine, Allison,” he says. ”I’m Jackson. Jackson Whittemore.” 

Allison watches the outstretched hand in front of her for a moment, but Stiles interrupts before she can take it.

“Hey, Al,” Stiles’ voice echoes through the hallway from behind her. “I got your…” Stiles trails off, looking up at Jackson. “Phone. From the car.”

“Is _that_ your boyfriend?” Jackson says, cocking an eyebrow, and Allison shakes her head, taking her phone from Stiles’ hand. “Stiles?"

“That’s my _brother_ Stiles.”

“ _Twin_ brother,” Stiles says, gesturing between them with a finger. “Important detail.”

“Twins? You?” Jackson laughs. “Yeah, right.”

“What? Dude, you can’t see the resemblance?” Stiles says, sounding appalled. “Look at these brown eyes. Just look at them; they’re identical!”

“Allison and Stiles are dizygotic twins.” Allison freezes at the sound of Lydia’s approaching voice. “Or fraternal twins. Or non-identical twins. Or whatever floats your boat.” She gives Jackson a once-over, tipping her head to the right and narrowing her eyes at him. “Huh. This should be interesting. You are?”

“Jackson,” Allison says before he can. “Jackson, this is Lydia. And this is my _twin_ brother, Stiles.”

“Not bad,” Lydia whispers in Allison’s direction, nodding her head in approval, but her eyes never leave Jackson. “Not bad at all, Allison.”

“That’s not—”

“Well. Shall we?” Lydia interrupts her, along with the bell, looping her arm through Allison’s and pulling. “You’re gonna tell me all about it in class.”

***

Turns out that Lydia is not interested in listening as much as she is talking. Allison doesn’t have a chance to explain that no, Jackson was not hitting on her and vice-versa, and that no, she hasn’t got Jackson’s phone number or Facebook account.

“He’s like the Adonis to my Aphrodite,” Lydia says, her back straightening as she cranks her neck to look at Jackson, who’s sitting at a couple of stations in front of them. “But with better hair. You should really have gotten his number.”

“I’m not interested in him, Lydia,” Allison whispers back, staring at the chemical equation on the blackboard as she writes it down. “I don’t want him.”

“Well, I do.” Lydia shrugs one shoulder, tapping her pencil against cherry-red lips. Then, she turns to look at Allison, relaxing the muscles on her back as she whispers in Allison’s ear, “Who _do_ you want, Allison?”

Allison’s brain short-circuits, sounding off every alarm possible in her body as Lydia’s finger strokes up her thigh. 

“That’s—” she starts, swallowing a mouthful of saliva when Lydia leans in closer, a smirk firmly in place. “That’s none of your business.”

“You know,” Lydia says, a little louder than expected, pulling away from her. Allison fights the urge to whimper at the loss. “Jackson does talk louder than he should. Especially in the hallway, where _anyone_ can hear.”

The pencil lead breaks under the pressure of Allison’s hand, flying straight onto the head of the girl in front of her.

“Sorry,” Allison mutters even though she’s a little breathless, and closes her eyes. One, two, three. She can do this. She’s not about to have a panic attack like Stiles. 

No, she’s fine. Everything’s fine.

“Ms. Argent? Is there something I can help you with?”

“No, I’m fine,” she says, nodding more to reassure herself than anything else. “Everything’s fine.”


	2. you may not know, but i'm setting you free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's chapter two! 
> 
> Once again, the excellent beta work is done by retrogradefurnace. Any remaining mistakes are mine to blame.
> 
> I have a feeling some people might want to kill me after this chapter (or maybe after the next one, I'm not sure), but it'll all work out. I promise.
> 
> Now, off you go. Enjoy and, as always, I love me some feedback!

The bell finally, _finally_ rings after God only knows how many painful minutes of sitting next to Lydia.

Allison is quick to grab her things and go, never looking back to see the likely smirk on Lydia’s lips, or to catch a glimpse of Jackson’s knowing look. She doesn’t stop until she’s at the lacrosse field, afraid of what might happen, what _will_ happen now that Lydia knows. And dammit, Lydia knows. She _knows_ , and might have known for a while now.

The grass is soft and humid from the overnight dew when Allison comes to sit down on it. Her legs are wobbly, still shaking even as her body relaxes, and she closes her fingers around the wet leaves, trying to steady herself to make the world stop spinning.

One, two, three.

She fades out the sound of birds chirping in the background and concentrates on the contrast of the cold September air and the warm sunshine on her face. Her eyes fall closed and she chases the bright spots on the back of her eyelids.

This time, when she feels the weight of a shadow and hears the subsequent voice, she doesn’t startle. There’s no rush of blood to her cheeks and her stomach doesn’t flip, even as she opens her eyes to find Jackson’s icy stare washing over her.

“Figured you’d be here,” he says, a shrug heavy on his shoulder. Allison doesn’t waste time asking how he knows, but her face must have shown her question because Jackson chuckles and answers, “If you want to be alone at school, this is probably the place to do it. I don’t think the idiots making out behind the bleachers count.”

Allison frowns, turning her head to look at two silhouettes lying on the grass behind the bleachers. She averts her eyes and glances back up at Jackson, taking the hand when he offers.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, slapping the dirt away from her dress. She gathers her things and starts walking, not caring if he’s following her or not.

“I don’t care.”

“Well, you should, because I don’t _want_ you here.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” Jackson says, close enough to her that she can feel his warmth against her side.

She bows her head, not saying a word, and keeps on walking.

***

Allison doesn’t know why, but by the time lunch rolls around Jackson is still following her. He’s quiet for the most part, only ever opening his mouth to let out an unpleasant comment or two. Half the time Allison is caught between wanting to stick an arrow between his eyes and finding more useful ways of shutting him up, but she does neither for a while.

She has her tray in hands, ready to look for Stiles and Lydia’s table when she decides to put an end to it. She turns around, almost ending up with a chest full of Jackson, and glares at him.

“Look,” she says, “I know you’re new here and that’s not nice. But for the love of God, you need to leave me alone.”

“I don’t want to.”

She really, really shouldn’t humor him, but:

“ _Why_?”

“Does it matter?” Jackson leans closer, until his tray hits hers. “You need me.”

“I don’t know you.”

“Details,” Jackson says, brushing past her. Allison follows him, against her better judgment. “If you want your pretty little girlfriend to actually _be_ your girlfriend, you need me.”

“Very altruistic of you.”

“You wish. I’m just bored, Allison,” he says, flashing her the biggest smile she’s seen from him so far, one that makes her trip on her thoughts.

She’s about to answer when Stiles waves at them from afar, calling out after her. Allison glances at Jackson, who just smirks at her, and prepares herself to stomach the uncomfortable silence between her and Lydia again.

“Hey,” she says, sliding into her seat next to Stiles.

“Hey. You okay? You vanished from the face of the Earth after Harris’ class.”

Allison glances at Lydia through her lashes, but Lydia is happily chatting with Jackson, who doesn’t miss the look on Allison’s face and glances back. Lydia doesn’t seem to notice this, or pretends not to notice, instead scooting closer to Jackson when he makes a particular observation that has her giggling.

“Yeah, I’m totally fine,” Allison says with a nod, eyes trailing back to Stiles.

Stiles nods back at her, but gives her that look that sits between _huh_ and _I guess we’ll talk when we get home_.

The first couple of minutes are mostly silent for her and Stiles, until Scott and Danny show up and then it’s only silent for her. She doesn’t mind; not really. Because she likes to eat in peace, without having to answer questions or make small talk, but it’s unsettling this time around. Especially with the secretive smiles and glances Jackson sends her way whenever Lydia is too enthusiastic about something to notice.

By the end of lunch, she hasn’t touched her food. Stiles manhandles her to a corner as everyone gets up to leave, one hand wrapped tight around her wrist.

“Is that guy bothering you?” he says, glancing back and forth between them. “Because if he is, I swear to God, Al—”

“No.” Allison shakes her head. “It’s fine. Jackson’s fine. I—I just want to go home.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“If you’re worried about me missing class, don’t. I’ll just grab Lydia’s notes later and—”

“No, that’s not it, Stiles. I just need to clear my head for a while. I’ll see you later, alright?” Allison says, taking his hand in hers and squeezing. “It’s okay.”

Stiles opens his mouth to speak, but a sigh comes out instead. “Fine. Just—be careful, okay?”

“Yeah. I will.” Allison pulls him into a quick hug. “I love you.”

“I love you too. See you at home.”

She nods and watches as Stiles goes back to class with Scott, Lydia, and Danny, waving at her just before they disappear into the hallway. Jackson’s still at the table, fumbling inside his bag with a frown on his brow. His forehead smoothens out after a second and he gazes up at her with a smile she can’t quite put her finger on.

Before she can ask, he’s walking to her, hand wrapping around hers as he jingles a set of keys in the other.

“Jackson, what—?”

“Shut up and walk.”

***

Jackson doesn’t let her speak during the ten-minute ride to her house. He has this look on his face, like he’s trying too hard to think of something and constantly failing, but she doesn’t comment on it.

Instead, even as they’re pulling up at her place and he follows her to the doorstep and then into the house, she keeps her mouth shut. She has to admit that part of her is kind of scared of him because his behavior is borderline bipolar, but strangely he’s also good company. 

Kind of.

Inside, she drops her bag onto the living room couch and he mimics her soon after, but not before taking a quick look around the nearby kitchen. He goes straight to the liquor cabinet when he finds it and grabs a bottle of whiskey that is too old and too strong for her, but she doesn’t complain. (Though her dad might).

Jackson silently urges her to go first and she does, letting the liquid burn its way down her throat in a long swallow. It doesn’t taste good, but it certainly feels good after the sixth consecutive gulp. Allison passes the bottle back, making her way up the stairs and into her room without a word, but listening to Jackson’s footsteps behind her as she drops her jacket along the way. 

She kicks away at her shoes once she’s there, bracing herself on her dresser as the alcohol spreads through her in waves, making her entire world tip to one side as she tries to straighten her back.

“I feel hot,” she says, to no one in particular, but she knows Jackson is standing a few feet behind her, watching. She chuckles, not amused. “God, I’m such a lightweight.”

“No shit,” Jackson deadpans when she turns to face him, tipping the bottle towards her in a mock-salute. She doesn’t know how or when it happened, but she’s only half-surprised to see that Jackson lost his jacket as well.

The buzz is starting to get to her ears, an irritating noise that bounces from one side of her head to another, and she chuckles again, despite herself. Jackson takes a step closer, placing the bottle onto the dresser. Allison takes a step back, snatching the bottle as Jackson’s hands come up to undo the buttons on his shirt, drawing her eyes to it.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” she confesses after a sip, slipping out of her dress. “I barely even know you.”

“Does it matter?”

“No,” Allison says, her voice a pitch higher than usual. Her eyes dance on his face for a moment, taking in his blue eyes and the barely-there freckles over his nose, and there’s just something about the way he carries himself and the way he speaks, that feels wrong. Like he’s trying to hide something, to play a part – much like Lydia. “No,” she repeats, “but you don’t like me—”

“I never said that.”

“—and you’re here, doing this. You know, you’re kind of like Lydia. Manipulative, superficial, always trying to make the world revolve around you,” Allison says, stretching her vowels. Something flickers in Jackson’s eyes at that, like he’s hurt or slightly amused by the comment – she can’t tell, but she knows this all too well. “And you don’t want her, but you kept flirting with her.

“I don’t know what it is about people like you. You have a way of making other people actually like you. People _want_ you. I want people like you,” she says, stepping out of the dress pooling around her feet, “and it’s wrong. I shouldn’t.”

Allison shakes her head, still not leaving Jackson’s gaze. He’s frowning at her, not gloating and not smirking, but frowning, considering – something Lydia barely ever does. As much as she wants to be with Lydia, Allison can’t understand how Stiles can stand her. Maybe she’s different behind closed doors, maybe she’s capable of stepping out of her heel and being a nice, genuine person. 

Jackson’s a poor man’s version of Lydia, and if that’s all Allison can get for now, she will.

“Don't make me regret this, Allison. You're overthinking." Allison narrows her eyes at him. Jackson heaves a sigh. "I like people like _you_ ,” he offers, quieter than she’s ever heard him until now, and smiles. He’s popping his jeans open, skilled fingers working on the buttons, but he’s still _staring_ at her. “If that helps.” 

Allison smiles back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and taking one last sip of whiskey. “I don’t know if that helps.”

She really doesn’t.


	3. and i say thank you for the scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter, you guys! 
> 
> I'm having so many feels from this fic it's not even funny. *cries* I just want to wrap Allison and Stiles in a blanket and hold them tight until I make everything better. 
> 
> Stiles has baked you a bunch of muffins, just in case the angst is too much.
> 
> A big thank you to retrogradefurnace for the amazing work, again, and to everyone who has bookmarked, commented, or left kudos as well. You are all wonderful!

Stiles, when he gets home after school with Lydia close behind him, doesn’t know what to think of the expensive Porsche sitting on the driveway. As he unlocks the door and steps through the threshold, he glances at Lydia over his shoulder with a question set on his tongue, but Lydia smiles that patronizing-not-patronizing smile of hers.

“Probably Jackson,” she says, shrugging past him.

Stiles stays by the door, one hand on the handle and the other shoved into his front pocket, watching as Lydia makes a beeline for the kitchen while calling out Allison’s name. She pokes her head around the room for a while, but stops in front of the open liquor cabinet, making a _hm_ sound in the back of her throat.

Stiles is pretty sure he can hear the light bulb materializing above her head, the sound loud and clear to his ears – first electric current and heat, then _bam!_ light. There’s another _hm_ from Lydia before she turns and makes her way to the stairs. He watches as a strand of hair untangles itself from the bun on her head.

Lydia turns around on her heel, one foot set on the first step of the staircase while the other dangles mid-air. “Are you coming or not?” 

Stiles is still watching when her dress rides up her pale thigh. Suddenly, there’s Allison’s voice echoing in his head,

_are you with her, Stiles?_

and he answers, “No.” Lydia gives him a look. He’s quick to add, “I mean, yeah. Yes, I’m coming.”

“Allison,” Lydia’s voice rises and falls, her heels punctuating her syllables with muffled thuds against the carpet. “Allison!”

Stiles’ eyes follow as Lydia gazes down at the pieces of clothing scattered on the floor – a trail leading to Allison’s room, he notices. A breath catches in his throat. Okay, those are _not_ all women’s clothes.

He doesn’t notice he’s stopped until Lydia mutters, “Well,” and he glances up at her, a few feet away from him. “This is unexpected.”

She rests a hand on the doorframe to Allison’s room, shifting her weight from one foot to another. Stiles makes his way to her, stopping short of bumping against her side, and Lydia emits a stretched sigh.

Stiles doesn’t have much to say. _Unexpected_ is a fair judgment on Lydia’s part, but he’s torn between wanting to bleach his brain, running around screaming, and staying to watch the slow rise of Allison’s chest under the covers, taking in the red that shines on her cheeks, the arm stretched across her ribcage and the hand splayed out over hers, next to her face.

He might have expected this a year before when Allison was still in her helter-skelter romance with Scott, or even before that when she went down the experiencing route with a girl five years older than her. Now, a few hours after having met this what’s-his-name person – Jackson, is it? – is not something Stiles can exactly wrap his head around.

He draws in a breath, twisting his neck to take a look at Lydia, whose fingertips are turning white against the doorframe, her mouth parted to let out a low, but heavy whimper. Her left heel drags on the carpet as she presses her thighs closely together, her color rising from the neck up.

Shit. 

Okay. He knows that look. He’s seen that look aimed toward a lot of tall, muscular guys in the hallway, and it has sex written all over it. That is not a good sign. Not in this situation. That’s his freaking sister lying on that bed, and he’s not quite that high on the fucked-up scale yet. 

“Stiles,” Lydia says in a warning, almost vicious tone when he takes a step past her, and her eyes finally go from the bed to his face. Her fingers curl around his wrist in a loose clasp, thumb over his pulse point.

“I’m not letting you eat my sister with your eyes!” he whisper-shouts, eyebrows flying up in his forehead.

There’s half a shrug from her. “I’m not.”

“Yeah, right,” Stiles says, but his words fall onto empty air.

Jesus Christ. Is that arrhythmia?

Lydia angles her head, eyes narrowing at Stiles as her fingers skim up his forearm. “Breathe, Stiles.”

Breathe. Yeah. Okay. 

He nods. “Breathe. I can definitely do that.”

***

Turns out that breathing doesn’t do a whole lot for Stiles when he’s about to have an emotional meltdown. Baking, on the other hand, does.

He’s pretty sure he’s got enough batter for an entire year worth of pumpkin cream cheese muffins, but if it’s not enough to calm his nerves, then it’s _not enough_.

Lydia is looking at him in random intervals like he’s grown two extra pairs of limbs and three heads, but Stiles doesn’t mind being under her scrutiny, even though he strongly feels he should be used to it by now. 

“Oh, my God,” he mutters under his breath as his sweaty fingers slide around the bottle of vanilla extract with no luck. “Oh, my God,” he screeches, this time, dropping it onto the kitchen island with a glass-to-marble sound, “who the hell do they make these for, freaking ninjas?”

He places his hands at his hips with a frustrated growl and spares a look at Lydia, who only raises her brow at him and goes back to inspecting her nails. Then, when he’s about to try to open the damned thing again, someone snatches it from his hand and unscrews the cap, returning it with a smirk that rivals Lydia’s.

He gapes at a (very, very shirtless, he might add) Jackson for a good two minutes before catching Allison standing by the archway out of the corner of his eye. He turns to her, ignoring the irritating burn in his ears, and she folds her arms across her chest before nodding over her shoulder.

Allison closes the double-hung doors behind her once Stiles settles in the study, the wood of their dad’s desk digging into him as he leans against it. Allison runs a hand through her sleep-mussed hair, folding a strand of it behind her ear as she bows her head. 

They stay like that for a moment, until Stiles shoves his hands inside his pockets and says, “Well?”

Allison glances up at him and holds his gaze for a moment, her mouth opening and closing until she settles on a low, shaky, “I’m sorry.”

Stiles mimics her against his better judgment, letting his mouth hang open as he struggles for something to say. Her eyes swim on his face, lost, gold-brown shining too bright, like she’s holding back tears.

“At least you’re not _shirtless_ ,” Stiles mutters, to no one in particular, and Allison frowns at him. He chuckles, despite himself. “I just—” he gestures with his hands, letting them fall on his lap with smack. “I’m worried about you, Al. You barely even know this guy.”

Allison nods, scratching a spot above her eyebrow. “I told you, I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah. You’ve clearly been taken care of,” he bites back, but regrets it the moment Allison shakes her head at him, a scandalized cry moving past her lips. 

“I can’t believe you,” she says, pacing back and forth between him and the door. “You know what I’m going through. You _know_.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry. I know—”

“I miss her, Stiles,” Allison’s voice wavers. “And you can’t tell me how to grieve. You, of all people, can’t tell me how to grieve.”

“She was my mom too, Al. Don’t you think I miss her? That doesn’t mean I’m going to sleep with the first hot guy that crosses my path!” Stiles closes his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck. “Or girl. Whatever. I just—” He vaguely gestures at her. “I thought you were set on this Lydia thing, you know.”

Allison places one hand on her hip and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I am, but Lydia’s—”

“—a bitch?”

Allison’s smile sits between a grin and a wince when she says, “Sometimes. Yeah,” and takes a few steps in his direction, wiping at her face. “I need you, Stiles. I—I can’t do this alone.”

“C’mere,” he says, patting his chest. An almost smile plays on Allison’s lips as she places her chin on the curve of his neck, arms locking around him. Her cheek is wet when she presses tighter, cold against the flush of his skin, and he ignores the hairs that stand on his arm. “Al?”

“Yeah.”

Stiles gives a gentle push at her shoulders and she takes a step back, far enough that he can see the look on her face. He takes her hands into his, tugs until her forehead is resting against his and says around a laugh, “I don’t like him.”

“Jackson?”

“Yeah. Dude’s all over the place.”

“Well,” Allison says, biting down onto her lower lip. “But he was very—”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Are you going to tell me about your sex life? Because I don’t wanna know. Seriously, I don’t wanna hear it.”

“No, but he was—”

“I swear to God, Al, if you finish that sentence, I’ll disown you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8/6: Guys, I'm so sorry for the wait, but real life happened to my beta and it's taking a bit longer than expected. I promise it's coming soon, though. So hold on tight!


	4. my match, your fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, finally! I am so incredibly sorry, guys. I'll try my best to update in shorter time periods. 
> 
> As you might have noticed, the chapter count just went up to fifteen. Wee! This is turning out to be a very, very slow build, mostly because I'm trying to stick to ~1,5k words per chapter. So, there'll be a lot of talking going on, but it will pick up. Please bear with me, people.
> 
> Betaing by retrogradefurnace, who did an amazing job as usual. Any mistakes remaining are my fault.
> 
> Thank you for patiently waiting and enjoy!

Jackson barely moves his gaze up when Stiles and Allison emerge from the study, but Lydia’s lips stretch wider over her teeth as she wipes at the corner of her mouth with a thumb. As Stiles’ eyes meet the reflection of hers, Lydia closes her compact mirror with a loud snap, spinning around in her stool to smirk at him.

“So,” she says, her voice high-pitched and unwavering. “Are we eating those or what?”

Stiles’ gaze trails from her outstretched finger to the oven, where smoke is starting to gather.

“Shit,” Stiles mutters under his breath, stumbling his way to his beloved muffins that are about to burn and managing to pull a muscle in the process. “Jesus Christ.”

He winces, trying to disperse some of the smoke with a hand. He grabs a cloth from the countertop above his head and takes the batch out, poking one particularly weird-looking muffin with a finger. 

“Holy mother of—” he cries, retracting the burnt finger to his mouth. “That is _hot_!”

He hears a snort from behind him and then a, “Is he serious?”

“You’ll get used to it,” Lydia declares with a sigh, and Stiles turns around in time to see her patting Jackson’s naked shoulder.

Blood boils and creeps up Stiles’ neck, but Allison intervenes before he can lose it. “Alright,” she says, hand curling around Stiles’ arm. He drops the batch onto the kitchen island and she clears her throat, her grip tightening around him. “Why don’t we eat?”

Lydia shrugs, reaching for a muffin and biting down on it without a second thought. Jackson raises his eyebrows, aiming a tongue-in-cheek smile at Stiles before mimicking Lydia. For a good three seconds, Stiles stares at the muffin Jackson’s about to sink his teeth into, hoping that it will either burn his tongue or make him choke.

By the time Jackson’s done with it and neither has happened, Stiles accepts his defeat and slumps down on a stool, the ghost of Allison’s touch still lingering on his arm. He twists his neck to smile at her and she smiles back.

***

“Stiles!” their dad calls out before even unlocking the front door. As he opens it and steps in with an icy stare firmly in place, he sighs. “Muffins? Again?”

“No?” Stiles offers, chewing around a mouthful of clearly-not-a-muffin. Still under his dad’s scrutiny, he amends, “Maybe?”

Allison chuckles and Stiles doesn’t fight an awkward smile. Their dad makes his way to the kitchen island, shaking his head in what Stiles figures is half-amusement and half-resignation, and drops a kiss to Allison’s forehead before squeezing Stiles’ shoulder.

“So,” he says as he’s opening the liquor cabinet. He stops in front of it, fingers drumming against wood. There’s a pause, one long enough to have Allison tense up and scratch a random spot on her temple. “How was school today?”

Stiles takes in a breath. “School was fine. Yeah. School was great, dad.”

“Good.”

“Yes. It was amazing,” Stiles manages to say, even though the words come out scraping at his throat. “How was hunting?”

“Fine.” Their dad turns around, setting a bottle of Gordon’s onto the marble. Stiles doesn’t even attempt to look at Allison, instead nodding his head in a half-assed attempt to show interest. He raises his eyebrows when their dad unscrews the cap and takes a sip of gin right out of the bottle. “Meet anyone new?”

“New? I—no. Not that I know of.”

“Allison?”

“Me?” Allison says around a smile, shaking her head. “No. I didn’t meet anyone.”

“Why not?”

“I—I don’t know.” She gets an unsatisfied nod in return and frowns, throwing a thumb over her shoulder. “I have some homework to do, so...”

“Yeah, me too,” Stiles agrees, the heels of his hands connecting to the edge of the kitchen island as he gets ready to leave.

“Not you, Stiles.”

He stops halfway through getting up, swallowing. “Okay,” he says and slowly lowers himself back on his seat. He closes his eyes as he waits for the sound of Allison’s footsteps to disappear.

“Who’s the boy?”

Stiles opens his mouth a few times before settling on a coy, “The… boy?”

His dad puts on his best _don’t mess with Chris Argent_ stare and Stiles rubs at his face, groaning in frustration. “Some guy named Jackson,” he mumbles almost to himself, but he’s sure his dad heard it.

“And?”

“And nothing, okay? She’s going through a rough time, dad.”

“Allison can go through a rough time without drinking and behaving like a—”

“For the love of God, dad! Just stop,” Stiles protests, getting up without a second thought. He shakes his head, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from choking up. “She was your family too. She was your _wife_. Try thinking about that for a second, alright? Not everyone can pretend not to have a heart.”

“Stiles—”

“I don’t wanna hear it.” He clears his throat, and wipes the corner of an eye. Fuck. He wants to disappear for a year. “Look, I understand this is how you’re dealing with it, but Allison’s dealing with it her own way. You need to be a dad right now, and nothing else. That’s all we’re asking. Just—” Stiles pauses, gesturing with a hand. “Just do that. For us, okay? For me and Allison.”

***

Stiles takes his time in the shower, pushing away at his anger toward his dad and partly toward Allison, too. Hell, even toward this Jackson dude. Their family is falling apart and a new part-time boyfriend for Allison is the last thing he would ask for. He understands her need for comfort in a situation like this, but Allison is _his_ sister and he’ll be there for her no matter what. She doesn’t need to sleep around; she doesn’t need to seek comfort somewhere else when he’s willing to wake up in the middle of the night to be there with her while she cries.

He’ll let her sleep in his room whenever she wants and he’ll wake her up with breakfast in bed if that’s what she needs. He’ll come up with stupid jokes that will only get half a chuckle out of her, but that’ll be enough for him. Just seeing her smile, that’s enough for him.

And shit, maybe that’s part of the problem.

Should he back off and let her be? Is he pressuring her?

“Fuck,” Stiles groans, and it bounces from one wall to another. He quickly steps out of the shower, not bothering to dry himself thoroughly before re-entering into his room. His brain takes a moment to process the fact that Allison’s sitting on his bed, her back against the wall and knees close to her chest as she hugs them. She has a blush spread across her face and her eyes are not looking directly at Stiles.

Oh, crap. She probably thought he was—

“I, uh. Should I come back later?” she says.

Stiles tightens his grip on the towel around his hips. “Al, I wasn’t—what you heard—that’s not—”

“Oh,” Allison mutters. Then, louder, “ _Oh_! No. No, no, no. I wasn’t implying—I didn’t—I just meant if you want to change first, I can come back later.”

“Right,” he says, casting his eyes away from Allison. He points to his closet. “I’ll just, you know.”

“Yeah, of course.” She nods. “I’ll wait outside.”

Five minutes later, Stiles has Allison back on his bed and this time she’s actually looking him in the eye. He drapes the damp towel around his neck and shrugs, letting out a soft, “So.”

Allison clasps her hands together, propping her elbows up on her knees. “I heard,” she says and, at Stiles’ lack of response, she adds, “You and dad. Downstairs.”

“Shit. I’m sorry, Al. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s fine. It’s totally fine, Stiles. Jackson and I, we—”

“I get it. You don’t have to explain anything to me. If being with him makes you feel better, that’s fine. I’m a hundred percent fine with it,” he says. Then, on second thought… “Or maybe seventy percent fine with it. I mean, the guy’s a bit of a jackass. I might be eighty percent fine with it on a good day, but that’s only because I love you.”

Allison has that look on her face: the one that shows up whenever she’s decided against saying something. She smiles up at him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Stiles unconsciously runs his fingers through his own hair. “You really don’t like him.”

“Yeah, well,” Stiles reasons, “he basically made me yell at my dad. _And_ he slept with my sister. I’m not exactly looking forward to being all buddy-buddy with the guy.”

“Right,” Allison says, but there’s that look again. Stiles waits for her to add something, but when she doesn’t, he doesn’t push. “I should go to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Stiles watches as she goes and mumbles to himself, “Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter five will be up in less than a week. Promise. <3


	5. when needles and lovers collapse on guilty beds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, guys! I thought I wouldn't make it before the 15th, but here I am. There's a tiny-not-so-tiny revelation in this one, but if you caught on the small hints I've dropped throughout the last couple of chapters, it probably won't be such a shock. (At least I think so.)
> 
> As always, big thanks to my beta, who has been extremely helpful and is a lovely person. This was beta'd twice, so there's only a small chance of us having missed glaring mistakes. Still, let me know if something is not right.
> 
> Thank you for reading, commenting, bookmarking, and leaving kudos. Y'all deserve a bunch of cookies!
> 
> Enjoy.

The cold air creeps through Allison’s bedroom door as she opens it, car keys in hand and a bag draped over her shoulder. Someone’s awake downstairs, swearing under their breath and clinking metal and glass together. 

“Not again,” she says to the emptiness of the hallway.

She glances down at her keys, jiggles them with her fingers, and takes a shallow breath before making her way down the stairs. Stiles stands by the sink, the heel of his hands supporting his weight as he leans over it, neck bent down. She comes to a halt with one shoulder touching the archway and assesses the situation.

“Are you baking?”

He jumps at the sound of her voice, turning around. “Hey,” is his only response for a while. He casts a look upon her, weary brown eyes blinking in her direction for no more than a minute, and turns back away. “No. I’m not baking. I was just, you know.” A shrug. “Throwing it away.”

“Throwing it—?” Allison starts, but cuts herself short when he reaches for another batch of muffins. She lets her things fall to the floor and runs to him, hands wrapping around his forearms. “Stiles—stop. Stop.”

He doesn’t fight her, doesn’t even try to. She releases her grip on him and his arms flail by his sides. His jaw is set, his eyes unable to focus and ringed with dark circles as he glances down at her, wetting his lips.

“It’s not like we were gonna eat them before they went bad,” he says as a way to justify his actions, but Allison knows better.

She takes a step back, attempting a smile that doesn’t quite tug at her lips. “Scott would,” she offers. “You always give them to him.”

“Scott, yeah,” Stiles scoffs. Allison bites the inside of her cheek at the bitterness. “Because Scott worked out so great the last time.”

Allison rubs at her forehead, turning her back to him as she walks to where her things lie on the floor. “Okay, this isn’t about muffins,” she says after she’s gathered her bag and keys and is looking up at him. He stays silent, except for the drum of his feet against the hardwood floor. “I thought we’d talked about this last night. It’s not like that with Jackson.”

“Really?” Stiles’ laugh is humorless. “Because you were very much naked with him the last time I checked.”

He’s staring down at her, arms tight across his chest, waiting for a comeback. To be honest, she’s tired of trying to come up with ways to talk to him about it. This is how he’s dealing with it and that’s fine, but she’s not about to ruin her – and his – day over it.

Her comeback ends up being a half-smile and a, “I’m driving. Are you coming or not?”

He frowns at her, opens his mouth to say something, but settles on a nod and a sigh. Resigned. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

***

Jackson is pulling up next to Allison’s car when they’re about to walk into the school. 

Stiles takes a few glances between the Porsche and Allison, narrowing his eyes at her. “Really, Al? This guy?” he whispers to her just as Jackson approaches them with a smirk. Stiles’ response is the biggest, fakest smile Allison’s ever seen in her life.

“Just go,” she says around an overpowering chuckle, receiving a puzzled look from Stiles in return. “Go! Go find Lydia or something.”

He takes a step back, throwing a glare in Jackson’s direction; it’s adorned with a threatening, pointy eyebrow. Jackson smiles wider, blowing an exaggerated kiss Stiles’ way. 

Stiles leaves with a horrified look on his face and Jackson shakes his head, stopping short of bumping into Allison. “Your brother is a moron,” he says, leaning in to place a kiss on her mouth.

She pushes at his chest before he can go any further, taking a careful step away from him. “Jackson—what are you doing?”

“Making this,” Jackson whispers, gesturing between them with a finger, “believable.” He raises his eyebrows, letting a condescending look wash over her. “Or did you think that letting your little girlfriend catch us sleeping together would make her magically in love with you?”

Allison takes a breath. Okay, Stiles might have a point in this. This wasn’t a good idea at all. “Do you have to be a jerk?”

Jackson laughs as if he’s flattered by the comment. “No,” he says. “But you should’ve seen your face.”

This time, when he leans in to kiss her, she’s prepared for it. “You should be careful with that,” Allison whispers, her lips brushing against his. The thought that they must look just like any other teenage couple makes her smile. Maybe they’re not entirely bad at this pretend relationship business. “I wouldn’t want to accidentally put an arrow between your eyes.”

“Is that supposed to seduce me, Argent?”

Allison punches him in the shoulder, rolling her eyes. “You wish.”

***

She doesn’t see Stiles, Jackson, or Lydia during the first two periods, but Lydia manages to corner her in the bathroom in-between classes. Lydia has that predatory smirk plastered on her face, the one that makes Allison both scared for her life and turned on.

“So,” Lydia says, stopping by the mirror to reapply her mascara. “How was he?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Jackson.”

“Oh,” Allison mutters. She crosses her arms. “He was great. I mean, he’s fine.”

Lydia turns around, her eyes meeting Allison’s with a newfound gleam to them. “Good.”

“Yeah.”

Allison swallows when Lydia scans her from head to toe, a smile playing on her lips. “You know,” Lydia muses, now one step closer, “I didn’t take you for that type of girl, Allison. I really underestimated you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lydia makes a low, purring sound in the back of her throat, walking in Allison’s direction until she has Allison trapped in a stall. “Oh, you know exactly what I’m talking about,” she says, taking Allison’s chin in her hand. Her lipstick is moist against Allison’s mouth. “Don’t you?”

Allison blinks once, twice, and she’s gone, leaving only the ghost of her footsteps behind.

***

Allison’s fingers are twitching for a bow and arrow by the time she sinks into her seat next to Jackson. Her tray connects to the table with a loud smack, making Jackson glance up from his food with a look that’s only mildly amused.

“She knows,” Allison whispers. “Lydia knows.”

“What?”

“She kissed me.”

Jackson’s eyebrows fly up, but the click of his tongue is only mildly amused. “Then it worked. Why the hell do you look like you’re going to ruin my lunch?”

“No, it didn’t—it didn’t work.” Allison shakes her head, brushing a strand of hair away from her eyes. Jackson frowns at her. “It was a threat. It felt like a threat. Like a game or a power play.”

Jackson’s frown grows into a smirk. “Yeah, you’re screwed.”

“ _You_ dragged me into this.”

_She nodded and watched as Stiles went back to class with Scott, Lydia, and Danny, waving at her just before they disappeared into the hallway. Jackson was still at the table, fumbling inside his bag with a frown on his brow. His forehead smoothed out after a second and he gazed up at her with a smile that she couldn’t quite put her finger on._

_Before she could ask, he was walking to her, hand wrapping around hers as he jingled a set of keys in the other._

_“Jackson, what—?”_

_“Shut up and walk.”_

_“Jackson—”_

_“Keep walking. I’m trying to help.”_

_“I didn’t ask for help.”_

_“Are you kidding me? You’re_ screaming _for help, Allison,” Jackson sneered. He let go of her wrist, but stopped and spun around, taking her shoulders in his hands. “Here’s the deal: we’re going to get you nice and hammered and in bed with me.”_

_Allison releases a strident laugh before realizing he’s being serious. “Seriously?”_

_Jackson sighed, closing his eyes. “You need to make her jealous. You need to make her hot for you, alright? If not, you’re just going to keep on having this pathetic high school crush on her for the rest of your life.”_

_“Oh, my God. You’re serious.”_

Jackson takes a sip of his Sprite and rolls his eyes. “You didn’t exactly complain.”

“Of course I did!”

_”I can’t do it,” Allison said as soon as they stepped into the parking lot. “I can’t. I don’t even know who you are.”_

_“Hey, let’s play twenty questions to see if that makes it easier for you.”_

_Allison considered it for a moment, taking in the smile that appeared on Jackson’s lips. Yeah, that was definitely not a truthful one. “Now you’re not serious.”_

“Fine, I ignored it. So what?”

Allison breathes in through her mouth, fighting the itch to clutch at her chest when her lungs threaten to collapse.

“I don’t know. I just—I don’t know.”

“Yeah, good talk, Allison,” Jackson says, giving her the thumbs-up. She doesn’t even have the strength to glare at him. She wipes at her forehead as he stops to look at her. “Are you having a panic attack?”

“No.” She bites down onto her bottom lip, clutching at the hem of her skirt to keep her hands from shaking. Dammit. She’s so much stronger than this. “I’m not. I’m fine.”

“Yeah, and I’m Captain America,” Jackson counters. “You’re overthinking. Again. You need to stop thinking about her. Think about something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Ponies. I don’t _care_ , I just need you to not barf on my perfectly edible food.”

Allison laughs despite herself, and glances up at him through her lashes. “Hilarious.”

“I know,” he says with a smile. Then, he stops to look at her, actually look at her. “Allison.”

She frowns. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

“Is that compassion I’m hearing?” she inquires with a smile, but it soon fades as the cafeteria spins around her. “No. Not really.”

Her eyes can’t quite focus on Jackson’s face, but she can make out the way his jawline tightens as he glances around them for a while. She rubs at her temples, wincing at a particularly annoying pain behind her eyes.

“Okay, Allison, listen to me,” Jackson says, placing one hand on the back of her neck and gently pulling her closer. “Lydia is coming. Don’t, for the love of God, overthink this or your head _will_ end up in a freezer.”

“You’re such a gentleman.”

“Yeah, I know. Now shut up and go with it,” he whispers, and then he’s kissing her; slow and soft, with a thumb stroking the spot just behind her ear. 

One, two, three.

One, two.

One.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm making no promises here, but it shouldn't be long until chapter six. So, stay tuned!


	6. no one can touch you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go, guys: have some sweet platonic Stydia backstory. Lydia finally shows that other side of her!
> 
> I have to say I had a blast writing this chapter. There was a smile plastered on my face the entire time, I swear. Phew. Unfortunately, things are going to get ugly after this.
> 
> Beta-read by retrogradefurnace, who did an amazing job as always. You can blame me for any remaining mistakes.
> 
> Thank you all for the support!
> 
> Enjoy.

Stiles has just walked into the cafeteria when Allison catches his eye. She’s pale and holds her tray in unsteady hands as she settles down on a seat next to Jackson.

“She’s going to be fine,” Lydia’s voice sounds from behind him, and Stiles glances over his shoulder to find a smile on her lips.

Oh, no.

“Lydia, what did you do?” 

Lydia shrugs. “Nothing,” she says, expressionlessly. “I just let her know I’m onto her little scheme with Jackson.”

“Little—?” Stiles gapes at her and his right eye twitches against his will. “Little scheme, Lydia? That’s my sister! You can’t just play mind games with her.” 

Lydia opens her mouth to say something, but narrows her eyes at him and seems to change her mind. “Oh, my God. She didn’t tell you, did she?”

“Tell me what?”

Silence resonates for a moment, heavy and resilient, pulling at the muscles on Stiles’ shoulders. Lydia’s gaze flickers between him and Allison, and then moves to her feet. She chuckles under her breath and shakes her head. “I can’t tell you. You’ll know soon enough.”

“I don’t want soon enough. I want _now_.”

Lydia rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she says, shoving past him. “Suit yourself.”

Stiles follows, but bumps right into her back when she suddenly stops. “Lydia, what—?” he starts, but finds himself at a loss for words when he catches sight of the scene in front of him. He quickly makes his way around Lydia, grasping her shoulders in his hands. “Okay, I do not want to see that. And neither do you, alright?”

Lydia smiles; the glint in her eyes makes Stiles quiver with terror. Then, she takes a breath and her face darkens, her brow knitting together as she says, “That’s not for show.”

“I don’t really like it when you have this whole Sherlock thing happening on your face.” Stiles gestures at her and she flinches away, frowning more deeply at him. “Seriously. It’s terrifying. You need to stop.”

“You know my methods, Watson,” Lydia says, inching closer to his face until their noses touch. Stiles is only half-surprised she’s still keeping a straight face when he steps back. She tilts her head to the side, in the direction of Allison and Jackson. “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

“Are we just doing random Sherlock Holmes quotes here or are you actually implying—?” Stiles glances over his shoulder. Yep, still kissing. He drags Lydia away by the arm. Two can play this game. “There is nothing like first-hand evidence.”

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” Lydia releases herself from Stiles’ grip. She nods in Allison’s direction again, and Stiles lets his gaze follow. Jackson steals a glance at them, like he’s waiting for a reaction, and Stiles quickly cuts his eyes back toward Lydia. She smiles, but there’s no trace of anything other than genuine concern. “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.”

He’s going to kill Allison.

***

“Stiles, you need to relax.”

Stiles shakes his head, vandalizing a copy of Crime and Punishment with absent-minded doodles. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, well, Dostoyevsky would beg to disagree,” Lydia says, lifting her eyebrows when he stops to look at her. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” he whisper-shouts. “She lied to me!”

“So what? Everybody lies.”

“Are we quoting House, now?”

Lydia rolls her eyes. “No. I’m just saying it’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what.”

“You do realize that’s actually a quote, right?”

“Look,” she says, reaching over to him. Her fingers are cold when they wrap around his. “Just talk to her. I’m sorry if I made her freak out. I’ll keep my distance.”

“Are you confessing?” he asks, and Lydia has a look on her face that almost makes him laugh, but not quite. “You did do something to her.”

“Well—”

“I can’t believe you.” Stiles shakes his head, drawing his hand back and away from Lydia’s grasp. Something flickers in her eyes, but she averts them before he can pinpoint what it is. Hurt, compassion, guilt. He can’t say. “You’re my best friend.”

He can’t hear the swallow, but he can see the way the muscles in Lydia’s throat work around one. This time, when she turns her neck to look at him, there’s no trace of… anything. It’s just green emptiness all over. “I know.”

Stiles releases a long breath, one that had been clogging his throat since the cafeteria. “She likes you,” he mumbles, not bothering to feel guilty for giving away Allison’s secret—odds are that Lydia already knows.

He waits, letting his eyes wander over Lydia. He doesn’t know what makes her shoulders drop and her eyelashes rest against her cheeks, but when she speaks, her voice is broken, the words scratching at her throat, “I know, Stiles.”

More than once over the years, Stiles allowed himself to forget about this side of Lydia’s. As kids, they would play in the backyard, build tree houses, hunt weird insects so they could show his dad later, and late at night, when Lydia’s parents would let her stay over, they would hide in his room until everyone was sleeping and deprive the fridge of everything with sugar in it.

Then, when her parents got divorced, she stopped coming to Stiles’ place. She wouldn’t come to school, either. Hardly anyone saw her mom in town. It was like the Martins had vanished from the face of the Earth. It stayed like that for a week, until Stiles decided to go to her. It had always been the other way around, but something had broken her, and standing at her bedroom door, listening to the quiet, barely-there sobs coming from inside, he realized it had changed her.

_“Hey, Lydia?” Stiles called, resting his forehead against the door. He knocked once, twice, and waited for her to acknowledge him. She didn’t. “Unlock the door, please. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. I just—I want to be there for you.”_

_There still was no response, but he waited. He slid to the floor and crossed his legs under him. Her muffled cries were the only thing keeping him company._

_“Allison asked why she hasn’t seen you at home,” he said. “But I think she’s scared of you.”_

_That, somehow, got a wet laugh out of her._

Stiles closes Crime and Punishment, tracing the letters on the cover with his fingers. “Remember that day I went to your house?” he asks, and Lydia nods her head. “What changed?”

Her chest rises as she takes in a breath and holds it. “I wanted—” she stops. “I needed to be stronger. For me, for my mom, and you made it so hard, Stiles. You made me feel—carefree, like nothing was wrong in the world, like I was on top of it, and I couldn’t feel that way. Not when my dad left and not when my mom was taking sleep medication like they were Skittles.”

_“Are you serious?” Lydia asked, and Stiles could hear the rustling of skin on fabric. Her bed squeaked. “Why?”_

_“I don’t know. You’re not exactly friendly with anyone.”_

_“Except you.”_

_Stiles chuckled. “Except me.”_

Stiles frowns at her. “I was the exception,” he says, and it comes out as if he’s surprised. He’s not.

A ghost of a smile tugs at Lydia’s mouth. “Yeah, well.” She straightens up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “There had to be no exceptions,” she punctuates her words with a tap of her pencil against the desk. “Not even you.”

Stiles’ gaze flickers between their teacher and her. “But you still let me in,” he whispers, rubbing the side of his neck. 

Lydia tilts her head to the side and pouts. “I did, didn’t I?”

_“I’m still not letting you in.”_

_Stiles groaned, hitting his head against the wooden door. “Why not?”_

_“I’m stronger than that.”_

_Okay, he officially didn’t understand girls. “I thought you were supposed to be friendly with me.”_

_There was silence on Lydia’s side of the door. Then, it slowly crept open, making Stiles jump to his feet. Lydia wiped at her swollen eyes, smudging purple eye shadow and black mascara around them. Her hair was sticking in all directions and Stiles reached over to smooth it out. She smiled and stepped closer, placing her lips on top of his. Neither of them moved, and Stiles pulled away after a second._

_“Is that supposed to feel horrible?” he asked, because Lydia was clearly more experienced than him._

_“No,” she said, looking alarmed. She blinked at him. “But it did.”_

_“Yeah, it definitely did.”_

Everyone jumps to their feet as the bell rings, but Stiles doesn’t move and neither does Lydia. He bursts out laughing at the memory. God, it was so _wrong_.

“You could’ve at least popped a mint or something,” he teases, but Lydia only rolls her eyes at him.

“I’d been holed up in my room for week, Stiles. I was living off pizza and cheap soda,” she says, gathering her stuff. She gets to her feet and takes her bag, looking down at him. “I gained ten pounds.”

Stiles smiles. “You did look a little too curvy for a twelve-year-old.”

She glares at him and starts walking. “Well,” she announces with a sigh, stopping at the door. “Are you coming or not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, and before I forget: it came to my attention that I might be making you Stackson shippers a little... impatient? Anxious? 
> 
> In my defense, there _is_ some yummy Stackson coming, I promise. I do like, however, to take my time with those two, so you'll have to bear with me.
> 
> ***
> 
> August 24th: I'm so sorry for the wait, guys, but I am totally unhappy with how chapter 7 turned out. My beta and I are working very hard to make it the best possible. It should be up soon. Thank you for your patience. :-) 


	7. and after this no one will carry you home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, my God, guys. You can all kill me by the time this is finished. I know, I know... I'm trying to manage my time better, but you know real life, college, and whatnot. I'm sorry!
> 
> Anyway, thank you for sticking around and commenting, bookmarking, leaving kudos, and/or reading. I'd like to thank my beta as well, who has been amazing and so lovely and patient with me. 
> 
> There's a little bit of trouble in paradise in this chapter, and it will last a while. So buckle up! I promise you there'll be a happy ending... somehow.
> 
> Enjoy and feedback is very much appreciated. <3

Stiles rubs the palms of his hands against his jeans, cutting his eyes to Allison’s car that is sitting on the driveway and back to Lydia. He’s been listening to Lydia’s fidgeting and finger-drumming for the last fifteen minutes, and that’s enough for him to know that she’s just as nervous about this as him. No matter how much she tilts her chin up and pretends to be fine—she’s worried.

And honestly, it doesn’t do much to calm him down. One would figure that misery loves company--well, not in this case. If _Lydia_ is freaking out, he sees no reason why he shouldn’t be too. A panic attack sounds pretty damn likely right now.

“Hey,” Lydia says, her words scratching at her throat in a way that never fails to make Stiles squirm. He almost jumps at the feel of her cold, clammy hand on his forearm—squeezing, reassuring. “I’m sorry.”

He nods, maybe a little too eagerly, but Lydia makes that thing with her mouth: teeth closing around her lower lip, like she’s fighting off an apologetic smile. “Yeah,” he mutters, letting out a long breath. 

“Come on, then.” Lydia actually smiles this time, and nods toward the door. “Let’s talk to her.”

He watches, waits until Lydia steps out of the car. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

They walk to the front door, sharing an apprehensive look before Stiles leads her in. As Lydia walks past him with her heels piercing through the silence as they hit the hardwood floor, Stiles closes the door.

“Allison!” he calls out, dropping his things onto the couch. The only response is the echo of his own voice, followed by a sympathetic look from Lydia as she glances at him over her shoulder, wrapping her arms around herself. Stiles shakes his head. “Maybe she went out for a walk.”

Lydia opens her mouth to speak, but presses her lips tightly before she can. She frowns. “Sshh. Listen.”

“What?”

“Just listen,” she says, raising her eyebrows. Then, her eyes narrow at nowhere in particular and she lifts a finger. “Do you hear that?”

Stiles concentrates on the faint sound coming from the back of the house. He hears a familiar swoosh, like something swirling through the air before hitting something else. The smile that fights for space on his lips doesn’t feel genuine, but he can’t help himself.

He shrugs one shoulder. “It’s her.”

“Allison?”

“Yeah,” Stiles mumbles with a sigh. Allison hasn’t locked herself in that room since their mom died. He turns to Lydia, rubbing the side of his neck. “You remember our old lab? The one we kept all those weird bugs when we were kids?” Lydia half-smiles, like she’s fond of the memory. Stiles goes on, “My dad turned it into a gunroom. He keeps all kinds of stuff in there—from forty-fives to machine guns. Knives, bows, you name it.”

Lydia takes one step in his direction as if she’s trying to read something on his face. “Bows?” she asks. “You mean those—?”

“Yeah, _those_.”

“Okay, so she’s shooting arrows through things.” Lydia furrows her brow, gesturing with a hand. “Like she used to in elementary school.”

“Except now it’s an actual bow and extremely sharp arrows. She’s been practicing by herself since our mom died.” 

Lydia’s swallow is audible as they grow silent. She takes a few more steps in Stiles’ direction, locking his arm in hers as she pulls him toward the stairs. “And she does this when she’s nervous.”

Stiles lets her lead him to the foot of the staircase, stopping only to share an uneasy look with her. Yeah, okay, there will probably be no talking with Allison when she has a potentially deadly weapon in hand. He points up at his room. “We probably should, you know, wait.”

Lydia tightens her hold on him, nodding. “Yes, we definitely should.”

***

Hours after holing up in his room, Lydia rolls her eyes at him. “Really, Stiles?”

“Yeah, why not? Maybe I can find something.” He starts typing and wets his lips. Then, when the page loads, he scans through the results. “There’s Cosmo—” 

“Oh, of course. Cosmo’s relationship advice is undoubtedly as reliable as the sex tips.”

Stiles stops midway through typing ‘my sister has issues’ into the search box on Cosmo’s website. Yeah, fine. This is stupid. He scratches the back of his head and turns around in time to catch Lydia kicking away her shoes. She neatly places them by the foot of his bed. “Lydia, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m not going home tonight.”

He lets out a scandalized whimper. “What?” At Lydia’s glare, one that sits between, _you’re stupid_ and _are you kidding me?_ (which probably mean the same thing, considering this is Lydia he’s talking about), he adds, “You can’t stay here.”

The fact that Lydia actually sounds surprised when she goes from glaring to _I just discovered a new element in the periodic table_ makes him slump in his seat in resignation. “Right, I can’t stay here,” is what she says, like she’s feeling the weight of the words on her tongue.

The look in her eyes makes a twinge of guilt flare up his chest. He rubs at his face, letting out a sigh. “I mean, what are you even gonna wear?”

“Allison has clothes,” she muses, inspecting her nails.

“She’s been locked in that gunroom for hours.” Stiles gestures away. “Probably shooting arrows in every spot imaginable. I don’t think you asking her for clothes is the best approach, here.”

“Why not?”

His right eye twitches. “Really, Lydia?”

She raises her eyebrows at him with an easy shrug. “What?”

“I’m seriously thinking of reevaluating my opinion of you as a genius right now.”

Lydia heaves a sigh, smoothing out her skirt as she stands. “I guess I’ll just have to talk to her, then, won’t I?”

“Yeah, not so eager, Sherlock,” he warns, raising a finger at her when she opens her mouth to speak. “If I hear one more word out of your freakishly perfect mouth, I swear to God, Lydia.”

“But—”

“No.”

“Sti—”

“Not listening.”

“You—”

“Lydia!”

She glances up at the ceiling in exasperation, hands clutching at her hips as she releases a frustrated groan. Then, she’s all over his personal space, scribbling something down on the notepad he keeps by a picture of him and Allison. She holds the note in front of his face.

 _Allison stopped_ it reads, along with an angry face.

She gestures for him to hear and he stays silent for a moment, listening only to their breathing. There’s nothing else. She’s right, Allison’s stopped.

His gaze creeps up Lydia’s face and, before he knows, they’re racing to the door as silently as they can. Lydia manages no stumble to it first, holding the left side of her face against the wood, and Stiles has to awkwardly find a way to stand behind her without being completely, well, awkward.

“Stop moving!” she whispers at him.

“I’m trying!” he whispers back, scowling at her. “You’re not exactly making it easy.”

Lydia makes a point of directing an exaggerated eye roll his way, combined with a sigh. She then scoots over, giving him enough space to listen through the door. They stand facing each other, cheeks pressed against wood as Allison’s footsteps approach. There’s an almost imperceptible pause when Allison passes by his room, but Lydia didn’t miss it, judging by the look on her face. 

Stiles has to hold his breath until he’s a hundred percent sure Allison’s gone before the tension stops pulling at his shoulders. Lydia’s hand reaches up for the knob, fingers gently wrapping around it and turning. They move away from the door and stick their heads out, glancing from one side to another.

“All clear?”

Lydia nods. “Come on,” she mutters, taking him by the hand. They tiptoe their way downstairs and to the gunroom, but when Lydia tries to open the door, she can’t. “It’s locked.”

Stiles glances behind his shoulder. “No, it’s not,” he says, taking the hairpin that is holding up Lydia’s bun. Lydia steps aside when he asks her to and he crouches before the door, moving the hairpin inside the lock until he feels the pieces of metal slide into place. He twists his neck to look at her and smiles, raising his eyebrows.

“Okay, Stiles, what the hell was that?”

“What?” Stiles says, entering the room. God, he hasn’t been in this room for years. He stops in the middle of it, offering the hairpin back without bothering to look at Lydia. “This?”

“Yes, that,” she whisper-shouts, snatching it from him. 

He lets out a soft chuckle. “It’s called lock-picking, Lydia.”

“And why in hell did I never know that?”

“You don’t have to know everything about me.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Lydia glares at him. “I hate you.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but Allison’s voice echoes around them before he can, “Liar.”

Both he and Lydia turn around at that, Lydia’s hand going straight to his, tight and steady. He’s pretty sure he can almost hear the surprised whimper that got stuck midway through Lydia’s throat. He glances back and forth between her and Allison for a second.

“Hey, Al,” is what he manages to get out without hyperventilating. Allison doesn’t say a word, but a smirk stretches across her lips in… amusement? Stiles takes a moment to breathe and take in the change in Allison’s posture; her chin is tilted up, her back set in a straight line, and her shoulders are relaxed, but carrying an edge of confidence on them. This isn’t the Allison from lunch at all.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, moving from her spot at the door to one where a variety of longbows and crossbows decorate the wall.

Stiles can’t fight the way his body emits a red alert all around. He takes a step back.

“Lydia,” he says with a swallow. “Can you give me a minute?” He looks at Lydia, who purses her lips and nods, walking away with only a quick glance in Allison’s direction. He waits until Lydia has closed the door behind her to lean against a wall, hiding his hands in his pockets. “I know all about it. I know about you and Jackson.”

The smile set on Allison’s mouth almost, almost falters. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Stiles laughs out of consternation. “You lied to me, Al. You stared me right in the eye and lied to me.”

“I never lied to you,” she says, licking her lips. She locks her arms across her chest, looking down at her feet. “Never.”

“Are you kidding me? You came to me.” He emphasizes, “You came to _me_ when you were freaking out about Lydia and I was there for you. I told you to go for it, and then you found yourself some guy so you could pretend to date him? You made me believe you were dating that jackass, and the only reason you did that was to make Lydia jealous. How is that not lying, Al? Did you even sleep with him that day? Do you even _like_ him? At all? Because I find that a little hard to believe.”

“I told you,” Allison says, not breaking out of her stance, “Jackson wasn’t like Scott.”

“Oh, right. And by that I was supposed to guess you were playing Barbie and Ken with him?” Stiles shakes his head, biting the inside of his cheek to keep his emotions in check. “You don’t pull shit like that, Al. You’re not some twelve-year-old girl who has to lie to get what you want. I know you’re not like that.”

“What if I am? What if that’s exactly who I am, Stiles?” she counters, raising her voice. The tears in her eyes are not from sadness, but something else. Anger, resentment? Stiles can’t stare at them. “You don’t seem to have a problem with Lydia playing with me like I’m some string-puppet, and I’m tired of that. I’m tired of always running to you when I need help. I’m going to solve my own problems now.” Allison pauses, making him look back up at her. She shakes her head, wiping away at a tear that falls down her cheek. “I’m not weak, and I won’t let you, Lydia, or anyone else make me feel that way.”

Stiles watches her for a moment, and the laugh that escapes him is cold and overwhelming. He can’t decide on how to feel, but the gaping hole in his chest is getting bigger by the second. If this is how it’s going to be, then so be it. Allison doesn’t want help and he won’t help, but he’ll make damn sure she knows that. 

He walks to her, stopping inches away from her unmoving stare. She jumps at the first clap of his hands. He claps again and again, watching the disturbed look in her eyes, one she’s barely trying to hide. Fuck—it hurts. It goes against everything he is and it’s destroying him inside, but she can’t expect him to be fine with any of this. 

Because he isn’t.

“Good for you.” He nods. “You would make mom _so_ proud.”


	8. in case i lose myself again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry? Again? For the hundredth time? Eeep! I really am, but it's here.
> 
> A little bit of an Allydia treat this chapter, and Stackson (yes, Stackson!) in the next. It's been a long time coming. Maybe not Stackson per se, but we're getting there. I think it will satisfy some of your Stackson cravings. (Or at least I hope it will.)
> 
> Thank you again, everyone. And my beta, especially. I cannot thank you enough! You're all amazing.
> 
> Enjoy.

The next few minutes are a long and slow process for Allison. 

She’s exhausted, relying only on her sore fingers clutching at the knife display before her to keep her steady, but she doesn’t break. Stiles shouldn’t have thrown her off her stride as much as he did; she was waiting for it, for the moment he stopped holding it all in. She knew he’d come up with something tactless and cruel to get back at her, but not this. As much as she thinks she deserves to be yelled at, her mom’s death is still too much of an open wound to play with. But, of course, Stiles knew that. He knew it would get under her skin, make her second-guess herself.

Still, the only thing she can think of doing with the agony thumping on her chest is shove it down as far as it will go. This, all of this—Jackson, Lydia, Stiles—has to stop. She can and she will take care of herself, even if that means burning a few bridges.

She closes her eyes, trying to untie the knot in her throat with a swallow. Before she knows it, her fingers lock around a knife. She feels the weight of the handle in her hand and runs her thumb over the engraved wood. Breathing in a gasp of air, she turns, and throws the knife onto the opposite wall. It’s a sudden rush of power—the feel of being in control—that stares back at her as light shines on the silver blade. 

It stays lodged on the wall as she turns on her heels and leaves, only looking back to lock the door behind her. As she turns back around, her reflexes kick in before she can be pushed face-first against the wooden door. Her right hand closes around Lydia’s wrist, holding it up next to Lydia’s head as Allison slams her into the wall, left arm pressed tight under Lydia’s chin.

“Aren’t you supposed to be with Stiles?” Allison asks.

Lydia seems unfazed by the entire ordeal, but Allison has to loosen her grip on her before she can speak. “He needs to be left alone.” Her tone is rough and startling, forcing Allison to loosen her grip on her even more.

Apparently, letting her guard down around Lydia is never the smartest decision to make, Allison ponders as she finds herself pushed up against the wall, Lydia glued to her back like a second skin. She tries to fight Lydia off, but the grip around her is too strong for her fatigued body. She closes her eyes.

“You know,” Lydia whispers in her ear, close enough that Allison feels the dampness of her breath against her skin. “You got quite a reaction out of him. I didn’t expect that from you, or anyone else.”

Allison laughs an empty sound that echoes inside her chest and off the walls. Lydia pulls Allison’s arm tighter across her back in response, making Allison wince at the pain that flares up the tender muscles on her shoulders. A moan drips from Lydia’s lips at that, a wet-hot sound that has a shuddering Allison squirming against the wall.

In the end she knows that, to Lydia, it comes down to who can play this game and right now Allison sure as hell can.

“You’re enjoying this,” Allison states, trying to keep her voice from cracking. She can’t move, can’t breathe, but this—turning the tables back on Lydia—she can’t miss this. “Is it the power?” she asks, and Lydia responds by turning her around. All Allison finds is a vast, green emptiness staring back at her. She wets her chapped lips and smirks. “Is it being able to be the dominant, Lydia? To make people give in to your every need?”

Allison is half-expecting Lydia to back away, to leave and pretend this never happened, and still manage to come out on top. But it seems that she has other plans in mind. Allison swallows, trying to dodge when Lydia moves closer, but realizing that she’s still trapped between Lydia and a wall, with nowhere to run. 

“I could say the same thing about you,” Lydia says around a predatory smile and, this time, when her lips connect to Allison’s, it still feels like a threat. A clearer, more menacing threat, but one that knocks the breath of out her for different reasons.

Lydia bites off any retort Allison was thinking of throwing back, her body going from still to dragging her leg up between Allison’s thighs. Then, as Lydia’s teeth finally break through the skin on Allison’s lower lip, Allison finds herself mirroring Lydia’s movements until they’re both rocking into each other’s thighs.

She moans into the kiss, grabbing a handful of Lydia’s hair and—

“Allison!” Allison freezes at the sound of her father’s voice, but manages to get over her surprise fast enough to pull away from Lydia and recompose herself, leaving Lydia behind without hesitation. 

She wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, ignoring the throbbing pain the friction causes to the newly made cut on her lip, and stops by the couch, catching her father’s shadow moving toward the stairs.

“Stiles!”

She runs a hand through her hair in an attempt to smooth it over as decently as possible, and says, “Dad, hey,” now dragging her hand down her arm to rest on her elbow.

“Hello, Mr. Argent,” Lydia says, looking as perfect as she was twenty minutes before; like nothing happened. Allison can tell she’s hiding behind a smile.

Allison’s father backtracks from his spot by the staircase, turning his body in their direction. He narrows his eyes at them, like he’s assessing the situation before him, but a smile soon breaks across his face.

“Lydia. How are you?”

Lydia smiles back, all teeth and crinkling eyes. “I’m good. How’s work?”

“Great, great.”

Allison clears her throat, throwing a thumb over her shoulder. “Lydia was just leaving,” she says, and her father nods, but frowns at Lydia. Allison follows his gaze to Lydia’s bare feet.

“I’ll just go—get those,” Lydia starts, waving a hand at her wriggling toes, “in Stiles’ room.”

Once Lydia’s disappeared upstairs, Allison opens her mouth to speak at the same time her father asks, “Is everything okay?”

Allison scratches a spot under her jaw. “Yeah, everything’s fine, dad,” she says. “I’m just going to go help Lydia out with her… shoes.”

Her father straightens his back, nodding. “You do that.”

***

In the morning, Allison wakes up to find her father in the kitchen, and not Stiles.

She doesn’t hold back her surprise, but also doesn’t speak a word when he takes a knife out—the same one that she threw through a wall—and waves it at her.

“I found this,” he says, making Allison get over the initial shock when his gaze doesn’t relent. “In the gunroom.”

Allison tilts her chin up, enough that she feels confident in saying, “I was practicing.”

“Clearly.”

“Where’s Stiles?” She asks, knowing her father is well aware of her attempt at deflection. She makes her way to the fridge, opening it to grab a forgotten fruit salad from a week ago. It tastes weird in her mouth, but she doesn’t make a sound.

“Practicing.”

“Oh.” She nods, chewing down on a mushy strawberry. She puts the bowl down, adjusting the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Okay. I’ll just drive myself, then.”

“I have the day off,” he says, grabbing his keys from the countertop. Allison’s flinch as metal scratches marble is involuntary. “I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t need—”

Her father smiles, passive-aggressive and bittersweet all muddled up into one, taking her shoulder in his hand. “Yes, I do.”

Allison nods, not out of compliance or fear—it’s more of a knee-jerk reaction to the situation. She receives a nod back and they walk like this, side by side and with the weight of her father’s hand on her left shoulder, until he opens the door for her. She settles up on the passenger seat, clutching the bag in her lap and holding her back straight.

They drive in silence, but Allison feels as though she’s not allowed to breathe without being exposed to the scrutiny of her father’s gaze. She crosses her ankles, rubbing the leather of her boots together.

“I’ll just take a ride back with Stiles,” she says, twisting her neck to look at him. 

He seems to consider it for a moment—Stiles has to have told him something, or _showed_ him something with that transparency only Stiles has—but he doesn’t protest: “Alright.”

“Great,” she adds after a heartbeat.

Her father leaves the engine running as she hops out of the car and onto school ground, but he doesn’t leave as she was expecting him to. Instead, his presence is like a heavy cloud hovering above her, not stopping until Jackson comes into play. Allison breathes in short, jagged breaths for the three subsequent minutes this conversation happens:

“Jackson, right?”

Jackson gives him a nonchalant shrug. “Yeah, and you are?”

“Her father,” is the response, which comes with a smirk and a squeeze to Jackson’s shoulder that seems to be too tight and linger too long. Her father’s fingers twitch, like he’s fighting the urge to grab the .45 Allison knows is tucked on the back of his jeans. Then, he glances around, scanning the parking lot. Allison follows his gaze, catching Stiles and Danny out of the corner of her eye. He points at Jackson’s Porsche. “That yours?”

“How’s that any of your business?”

A laugh is really not the reaction Allison thought Jackson would get out of him. “So, yes,” he says, cocking an eyebrow at Jackson. 

Jackson sets his jaw, baring his teeth in a sneer that would go by unnoticed if he weren’t talking to—well, the Argents. “Yes—”

“And that,” her father interrupts, grabbing Jackson’s chin to tilt his head up, “where’d you get that?” He asks, nodding at the bruise on Jackson’s lower lip.

Allison covertly glances around to check if her father’s… unique way of showing affection towards her isn’t being frowned upon by _normal_ people. “Dad,” she whispers through her teeth, dragging a finger down her temple. “Let him go.”

He does, at the same time as Jackson jerks away. “Lacrosse,” Jackson offers, licking away at the blood that starts gathering on the corner of his mouth.

“Lacrosse? My son plays lacrosse. Maybe you—”

Allison closes her hand around her father’s arm. “Dad.”

He gives her that look, the one that says _this isn’t over_ , and nods. He walks away, but not without stopping by Jackson’s Porsche and tapping on the hood. “Nice car you’ve got here.”

Allison waits until he’s gone, leaving the hum of the car engine as a reminder behind him, to walk past Jackson and into the school. 

“What the fuck was that about?” Jackson calls out after her. Allison comes to a halt. She turns, opening her mouth to speak, but he cuts her off, narrowing his eyes at her. “What happened to _your_ lip?”

“Nothing,” she says, picking up her pace again. Jackson walks behind her. “What _actually_ happened to yours?”

Jackson makes a face, like he’s ashamed to tell, but after a click of his tongue, he says, “Your moron of a brother happened,” and Allison has to stop in front of her locker and wonder if maybe they had the same kind of encounter as her and Lydia’s. “He was aiming for my jaw.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Oh.”

“Apparently he wasn’t too happy to find out about,” Jackson says, gesturing between them, “us.”

Allison lets out a scoff. “More like the lack of an ‘us’, which was a stupid idea from the beginning.”

“You went along with it.” Jackson arches an eyebrow and smirks. “Didn’t you?”

Allison grabs a book from her locker. “Which reminds me,” she starts, glancing over her and Jackson’s shoulder to catch Stiles at the end of the hall, leaning against the locker next to Danny’s. She drops her gaze when he looks at her, “Moron must run in the family.”

Jackson runs the tip of his tongue against his bruised lip. “Clearly.”

She rolls her eyes at him, slamming her locker shut and resting her shoulder against it. “I’m still trying to figure out why I thought this could work.” She squints at him, watching the way a muscle pulls on his neck. “It was never about helping _me_ , was it?”

Jackson doesn’t answer; not right away, and she smiles. Oh, no—if his behavior is anything to go by, all of it was far from being about her. It’s never about other people with him, is it? His eyebrows rise with a frown between them—patronizing, she thinks—and he smiles back. “I’m appalled you ever thought it was, Allison.”

***

The five of them—Danny included—apparently share the second period.

She has already taken a seat by the window, sitting at the front row where she’ll have to force herself to pay attention to whatever the teacher’s saying, when Stiles appears at the door. She sinks in her seat, taking a look at Lydia on the other side of the room before glancing back at Stiles. He presses his lips together when their eyes meet, a tight and straight line that almost makes Allison avert her eyes. Almost.

 _He_ does eventually, after a second or two, but doesn’t move otherwise. That is, until Jackson shows up. He bumps right into Stiles, turning to him in a way that Allison can still get a glimpse of the smile on Jackson’s face.

“Sorry about that,” he says, letting his free hand slide up Stiles’ arm, and there’s that condescending tone again. Stiles visibly tenses at the touch, but doesn’t react. “There was an idiot standing in the way.”

Stiles gives her one last look as Jackson leaves for his seat, shaking his head. Allison cuts her eyes to the blackboard and, when she glances back up at the door, Stiles is gone.


	9. and i've been shamed with no words to find

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, folks, all aboard the Stackson ship for the time has come! There is a special appearance by our beloved Danny, who can only make things better. Am I right?
> 
> For those who know me, I couldn't have possibly written a multi-chaptered story without hurt!Stiles, so here it is. It will all be fine, though. I promise you that. 
> 
> Kudos to my beta for the awesome work as usual.
> 
> Thanks, you guys, and enjoy!
> 
> P.S.: There might be a Firefly reference somewhere in there... Might... Yeah, okay, there _is_... I'm sorry, but Stiles and Lydia are huge nerds. Mmhmm.

Stiles presses the heels of his hands on either side of the sink, his knuckles turning white as he clutches at it. His mirrored, unsmiling self stares back at him with haunted eyes, and he’s half-expecting it to blink even though he doesn’t, like some other version of him is only now breaking free. He shakes his head, letting weight off one arm so that he can wipe at his face.

The back of his shoulder still prickles from the force that Jackson ran into him, and it radiates all the way to the bruise on his chest, which—Stiles barks out a laugh—is Jackson’s doing as well. His fingers close on the collar of his t-shirt, dragging it down far enough so he can see the smear of purple-red spreading there like a misshapen fist. He was fast enough to dodge a full punch to the chest, but two-thirds of a punch to the chest still hurts like a bitch.

His fingertips are cold against the tender skin when he touches it and he hisses at the discomfort. A pack of peas straight out of the freezer sounds extremely appealing right now. Or anything cold, really. He would take literally anything. 

He stands in stunned silence, watching himself in the mirror. 

Yeah, fine.

He shrugs off his plaid shirt and the t-shirt beneath it soon follows. He opens the tap and lets his t-shirt soak in cold water before pressing it against his chest. “Ah—fuck,” he mutters, clenching his jaw in a futile attempt to ignore the pain. He flinches as ice-cold water drips from his t-shirt, down his stomach, and into his jeans, pressing the tee harder into the bruise, causing the hairs on his arm to stand up at attention. 

He does this over and over, until the pain is so numb he’s pretty sure he can’t feel _anything_.

“Whoa,” Danny’s voice comes from somewhere at the door, high-pitched and unsure. Stiles turns to look at him, who is averting his eyes, looking pointedly at the wall. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

Stiles laughs, feeling a slight pull on his eyebrows. “Dude, no,” he says, dropping his wet t-shirt into the sink. Danny turns to look at him, still seeming more than a little uncomfortable. His eyes trail down Stiles’ chest and Stiles fidgets. “That’s what happens when your sister has an asshole for a friend.”

Danny frowns at him, not moving from his spot, and Stiles waves it off. The lines of Danny’s shoulders finally smooth over. “It didn’t look that bad before,” he says, gesturing at Stiles’ chest.

“It’s fine.”

“Doesn’t look fine.”

Stiles shrugs again, hiding a grimace as it pulls at the muscles on his chest. He walks into a stall to grab some toilet paper and speaks from there, “Just give it a week.”

Danny throws a thumb over his shoulder when Stiles comes back out. “I have some painkillers in my bag, if you want.”

Stiles nods, shrugging his plaid shirt back on after he’s dried himself. He buttons it up, nodding. “Thanks, Danny,” he says, grabbing his wet t-shirt and stuffing it inside his backpack. Thinking back to it, not such a good idea. Danny’s eyebrows fly up on his forehead and Stiles mimics him. “Yeah,” Stiles mutters, “I’ll just—throw that out,” and does just that.

The fact that Allison gave it to him last Christmas totally doesn’t affect him. 

At all.

_(Or maybe he’s just getting better at lying to himself.)_

***

By lunch, Stiles is thankful for Danny’s godsend painkillers.

Stiles waves at him from across the cafeteria before he starts eating, tipping his can of Pepsi in Danny’s direction with a smile. Danny responds with an easy smile and a quick, bashful look, and soon goes back to his burger.

“You’re ignoring me.”

Stiles glances up at Lydia, taking a bite of his turkey sandwich. “Really,” he says around it, wiping at his mouth with a napkin. A gulp of Pepsi makes it go down smoothly. He clears his throat. “I didn’t notice.”

Lydia clasps her hands together across the table. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you before.”

He knits his eyebrows, clutching at his heart. “Whoa, I’m touched,” he says (through his teeth, because painkillers can only do so much). 

“Sarcasm really is your only defense, isn’t it?” she asks, pursing her lips. She nods at him, gesturing with a finger. “Hurt yourself?”

He doesn’t bother answering, but he does steal a glance in Jackson’s direction, two tables ahead. He can’t help himself—or the anger building up at the pit of his stomach. Lydia narrows her eyes at him and then glances over her shoulder. When she turns to face him again, she has a smirk firmly set on her cherry-red lips.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

 _Nothing my ass._ “You know,” Stiles speaks after a moment. He takes another bite of his sandwich. “If anyone gets nosy, just, you know, shoot ‘em.”

Lydia perks up—of course she does—at that, crossing her legs and resting her hands on one knee. “Shoot ‘em?”

“Politely.” He aims at her with his forefinger and fires. She mimics his gesture from before, clutching at her chest. And it’s then that Stiles realizes he can’t be mad at this beautiful, manipulative, hot-and-cold genius. Maybe just a little. “You make it hard to hate you when you’re the only person I know that gets my references, Lydia. But you’re excessively nosy and I’m still mad at you. You know that, right?”

“Well, I _do_ have the right to be nosy, as your best—” she starts, but at his glare, cuts herself short. “I know,” she says then, her voice low; there’s an apology in there, but also resignation.

“It’s kind of your fault. She did it for you.”

“I’m working on it.”

Stiles snorts. “Does ‘working on it’ mean almost tearing a chunk of my sister’s lip off?” he counters, getting a wide-eyed stare from Lydia. She opens her mouth, but only a hot wisp of air comes out of it. He shakes his head. “Yeah, I happened to notice.”

Lydia glances down at the table, looking like she’s about to step over some boundaries. “I _was_ going to be gentle, but—”

“No.”

“Just ‘no’? You’re not going to threaten to disown me?”

He squints at her. “Do I have to?”

Lydia throws her hands in the air. “No.”

***

Stiles overstays his welcome at school—apparently, running away from class is grounds for detention. At sundown, Danny finds him again when he’s about to leave. Stiles closes his locker after putting away a few books and leans against it, letting the metal dig into his shoulder.

“Hey, man,” he says, giving Danny a light pat on the arm. “What’s up? I thought you’d be gone by now.”

Danny greets him back with a smile, adjusting the strap slung over his shoulder. “Yeah, I—had to catch up on a few books in the library. Do you think I can catch a ride with you?”

Stiles stares up at him. “Sure. Yeah. Come on,” he mutters, gesturing for Danny to follow as he starts walking. Some part of him is glad to avoid home for ten more minutes. “You still live in the same place?”

He glances at Danny, who nods with a dimple-adorned smile. Stiles smiles back out of courtesy, but he knows it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Danny, apparently, is also aware of that, but doesn’t comment. Instead, he touches the back of Stiles’ left shoulder as if to say _hey, if you need me_ and Stiles responds with a nod, hoping it’s enough.

They walk in companionable silence, sharing nothing more than a few glances every other minute. Danny holds the double-hung doors open for him when they’re about to step out of school, and Stiles raises his eyebrows in a question that goes by unanswered. He doesn’t think he’s ever spent as much time—which, honestly, still isn’t much—with Danny as he has today. He has a strange feeling he’s stepping into Scott’s shoes here.

So, when it pops out of his mouth, “Scott leave you behind?” He’s welcomed by a grin from Danny, as if Danny had been expecting him to ask that. He feels a little violated.

“No, actually,” Danny says as he follows Stiles down the steps. “I said he could go without me. He had a date.”

“Oh.” Stiles frowns. This isn’t one—is it?

Danny speaks up before he can vocalize his thoughts: “Last I checked this was just a ride home.”

“Good,” is his immediate response. “I mean, not that you’re not a good looking dude, because you totally are, Danny. I just—I’m not sure I—”

“Hey, relax,” Danny says around a chuckle. “I already have an eye on someone else. Don’t worry.”

Stiles stops by his car, fumbling inside his pockets for the keys…

Wait a second.

“How did you know I was going to ask that?”

“You do this thing with your face.” Danny gestures at him, making a face that has Stiles failing to think of anything other than an angry raccoon. “It gives you away.”

Stiles scoffs. “I do not look like a raccoon.”

“You kind of do.” Then, Danny amends, “A cute raccoon.”

Stiles takes the compliment for what it is—hey, he can’t exactly complain—and unlocks his Jeep. As Danny hops in the passenger seat, throwing his backpack onto the back, and Stiles goes to do the same—

“Dude, where the hell is my stick?”

Danny looks at him like he just grew a foot in his mouth. “Your stick?”

“Yeah, my stick.” Stiles waves a hand across the air. “My lacrosse stick.”

“I thought you left yours in your locker.”

“Mine doesn’t fit in my—” Oh, shit. Shit. It’s in the locker _room_. He glances up at Danny. “I’ll be back in two seconds,” he says, and Danny opens his mouth to speak, but Stiles cuts him off, “Real quick. I promise. Two seconds,” and runs back inside the school without waiting for an answer (other than a sigh).

He isn’t expecting to find someone in the locker room when he barges in, and especially not _Jackson_ , holding the stick in his hands like it holds the key to every mystery in the world. Stiles shifts his weight from one foot to another, sucking on the inside of his cheek before biting out: “That’s mine.”

Wrong, wrong move.

“Oh, really?” Jackson raises his eyebrows, smirking, and it takes Stiles every ounce of willpower not to jump the asshole when he tosses the stick from one hand to another and crashes it against a locker. Hard. It snaps in half. “I think that _was_ yours.”

If anyone brings it up later, he’ll just say Jackson was asking for it; which he is. He so unarguably is.

Stiles lunges at him, right hand balled up in a fist and ready to land a punch on his face, but Jackson’s quicker than him. His knuckles connect with metal, denting the locker, and the upper half of his stick crashes hard against his ribs, knocking the air out of him— he has a feeling it will be gloriously purple later. 

He has to laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole situation, especially when an elbow drops to the small of his back and sends him plummeting to the floor. He scrambles to his feet and to where the other half of his stick is on the floor, but as soon as his fingers close around it, a kick to the back of his knees sends him careening back down.

“Fuck,” he says, a little out of breath and just short of a panic attack. 

Jackson straddles his back, pointy knees digging into both sides of his ribs, and it’s like a moment of mental clarity, a rush of adrenaline mixed with terror that makes Stiles’ reflexes kick in. He swings the stick over his shoulder, hitting Jackson somewhere in the vicinity of his face—judging by the stifled, “Not the fucking face,” that he hears—and takes advantage of that moment to flip them around. 

He lands on Jackson’s chest, holding the stick to Jackson’s throat until Jackson turns a shade of red that has Stiles almost, almost letting him go. Jackson reaches out with a hand and Stiles watches as he unsuccessfully tries to grab the other half, giving up after the third attempt. By then, he’s gasping for air—Stiles can tell by the way his chest is heaving against the back of Stiles’ thighs—and Stiles loosens his grip long enough for Jackson to breathe in a jagged gust of air.

“Get the fuck off me, Argent,” Jackson spits out, his voice coarse and strangely ero—yeah, no. Focus, Stiles. Focus. “I never touched her.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at Jackson; anger starts boiling at the pit of his stomach. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? You _used_ her for your own fucking entertainment.”

“I was bored; what did you want me to do? There is absolutely nothing worthwhile in this pathetic little town, _Stiles_ ,” Jackson purrs his name—he fucking _purrs_ , the bastard—and smirks, raising his eyebrows. “I do what I can to keep myself occupied.”

Somehow, Stiles’ anger gets stuck in his throat, burning hot and fast, but it doesn’t go past that spot. It stays there, lodged like a tiny little fireball that steals the words from him. He has to let go of Jackson altogether, rolling off to the side and crawling backwards until his back hits a bench. 

He can only make out a slight frown in Jackson’s brow as Jackson props himself up on his elbows. Stiles swallows, but it hurts; his head spins, the world moves in slow motion around him. It’s like hopping on a rollercoaster going a mile an hour.

Stiles tries to blink the fuzziness away and fails. The words are past his lips before his brain can process it, “I wish your stupid face would stop moving so I could punch it,” and he’s not sure if that’s a growl or a laugh that comes from Jackson, because the ring in his ears really isn’t helping, but he can almost feel the panic subdue.

He tries to focus on Jackson’s face as Jackson peels himself off the floor and, for a long second, Stiles can’t look away. He’s pretty sure there’s an ugly bruise forming somewhere on Jackson’s cheek; it kind of complements the cut on Jackson’s lip.

Stiles licks his lips, tasting blood he didn’t know was there. “You know, we lost—” his voice fails, but he goes on, “—we lost our mom about a year ago. Allison couldn’t take these stupid kids at school looking at her like she was this—anomaly or something. She hated it. She fucking hated it.”

He rubs at his eyes, feeling the world finally stop spinning on its axis. “She was vulnerable to manipulating jerks like you. She would turn to anyone for help,” he mutters, and he’s not sure it’s loud enough for Jackson to hear. He’s not sure he wants Jackson to hear. “You’re the last thing she needs.”

“Yeah,” Jackson says, “because Lydia is so much better.”

That, for some reason, does strike a nerve. And not a good one.

Stiles props himself onto the bench he was leaning against, taking a deep breath before picking himself up and cracking his knuckles. Jackson is massaging the left side of his face, not looking at Stiles, and Stiles chooses that moment to throw a punch at him.

Jackson stumbles until his back hits a locker, bringing a hand to his newly punched cheek, and Stiles is half-expecting to start the brawl all over again. 

They don’t. 

The only thing he gets in response is Jackson spitting a mouthful of blood onto the tiles, his eyes never leaving Stiles, and nothing more. There’s no snarky remark, there’s no kicking or punching—there’s no fighting back. Only that: a look. Of defeat, loss, exhaustion, Stiles doesn’t know what, but it makes that knot rise to his throat again. He tries to swallow, but it’s like nothing will go around it; it’s an insistent, painful hold around his neck that won’t go away.

He struggles for something to say. Anything even remotely coherent, but his body is working against him in every way possible: his feet won’t move, his lungs won’t fill with air, his brain won’t think of a word to say. He’s at a loss—of everything, emotions, sensations, words—and he can’t cast his gaze away from that goddamned _look_. He feels like laughing at this invisible, silent tug of war they have going on, but he can’t. He won’t.

“You don’t even compare to Lydia,” is what he manages to say (after seconds, minutes, he doesn’t know), but it doesn’t ring completely true to his ears. Lydia—is complicated. Sometimes, he feels like he’s only peeling different layers off Lydia Martin, but never getting to the core. And this feeling, right now, with Jackson, is exactly what _Lydia_ makes him feel. Like he can’t do anything, like all that’s left is looking at each other waiting for the world to implode.

Like he’s nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writer's block is a shitty shit, I'll tell you that, but I'll try to get chapter 10 out as quick as possible.
> 
> Nov 20th update: Chapter 10 news! Woot! I'm almost 3,000 words in, folks. This will probably be a big one. I will get it up on AO3 as soon as possible, although unbeta-d. Thank you for your patience! :-)


	10. we all know how to fake it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally caught a break from college, so here it is - chapter 10! It's not beta'd, so bear with me.
> 
> It took me a lot longer than I thought it would, but I made it a little more wordy to compensate. There was going to be a lot more Stackson, but I had to leave the actual shenanigans for the next chapter because I didn't want this one to be _too_ wordy.
> 
> Also, I mixed up the POVs a little bit. Nothing big, but I thought it'd be good to see both Allison and Stiles' views in this. 
> 
> There's a guest appearance by coach Finstock, there's drama, there's attempted humor, and there's a little flirting toward the end! There also might be medical inaccuracies and little hurt!Stiles, I'm sorry about that. 
> 
> Thank you so much you guys for sticking around and being patient.
> 
> Enjoy!

Danny manages not to ask him anything other than, “Are you okay?” when Stiles comes back from the locker room. 

Stiles answers with a forced smile and a quiet, “Yeah,” that seals the conversation for the rest of the ride. 

Danny wraps his hand around Stiles’ when Stiles pulls up at his place; Stiles is thankful for the silent gesture, and shows his gratitude by saying, “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it,” and squeezing Danny’s fingers with a sore hand.

Stiles figures, by the slight frown between Danny’s eyebrows, that he has to reiterate that he’s okay, even if he’s lying, “It’s fine. I’m fine, Danny.”

Danny goes without a word, but Stiles has to drive back home with every unspoken question he saw in Danny’s eyes hanging heavy around him. That doesn’t set a very good mood, and when Stiles gets home and his dad greets him with a warm smile and a squeeze to the shoulder, he doesn’t feel like returning the gesture.

He tries, unsuccessfully, and mentally braces himself for the forthcoming questionnaire. His dad is smoother than he was expecting:

“So, what are we baking?”

Stiles has to laugh at the question, a sound that rings like a faint echo in his ears, but that has him wiping at the remnants of a tear from the corner of his left eye. The muscles in his stomach hurt and his mouth still tastes like copper, but that, strangely, doesn’t keep him from walking to the kitchen and grabbing flour from the cupboard, saying, “Ginger carrot muffins. What do you say?”

There’s a beat before his dad makes a face. “Is that a thing?”

“Dad.” Stiles raises his eyebrows, tapping his dad on the shoulder. “It’s a delicious thing. Trust me.”

They laugh, looking for the ingredients in contented silence, and it’s only when Stiles is putting the muffins into the oven that his dad asks, wearing a frown that merges with the wrinkles on his face, “Where’s your sister?”

Stiles is under the impression he should know the answer to that.

“Stiles, where’s your sister?”

“I don’t know. I thought you were picking her up.”

“No. She was taking a ride home with you.”

Stiles frowns. “Okay, dad, I don’t know if you noticed, but Allison and I are not exactly on talking terms.”

“You’re not,” it’s not a question, not an affirmation. It sits somewhere in-between and dangles in the air as Stiles opens and closes his mouth, failing to come up with a reasonable response. His dad sighs. “Should I be worried?”

“I don’t know. Is there something missing in the gunroom?” Stiles means it as a joke, but when there’s a long minute of silence between them, he’s not so sure.

Stiles slaps flour away from his shirt and then wipes his hands on his jeans, his eyebrows flying up. “Yeah, I’d be worried.”

***

Later that night, when Stiles has eaten twice his weight in muffins and is shrugging off his shirt in the least painful way possible, he hears his dad shouting.

He can’t make out the words, but it’s not a friendly backdrop as he maneuvers out of his shirt and takes a breath, wincing at the pain that spreads through his torso as he does so. 

The bruise doesn’t look good when he stares at himself in the mirror; it’s taken an ugly, malformed shape and a shade of dark purple that has him worried for a second. It’s warm and sensitive under his fingers, like a rib might snap in half at the simplest touch.

“Shit,” he murmurs to the lifeless mirror, half-expecting to get an answer out of it—a heartless laugh, a snort, something. 

Nothing.

Outside his door, someone—Allison, probably; he’s almost sure—marches up the stairs, the sound in synchronicity with the pounding rain. Then, another set of footsteps follows, heavier even, more determined.

_“I’m talking to you, Allison!”_

The subsequent silence and door-slamming are almost physically painful to Stiles. He draws in an unsteady breath, stepping back until the back of his knees hit the bed, and all but dissolves into a worn-out muddle on the mattress.

Everything is going to be fine, right? It always is.

***

Allison closes her eyes, letting her head fall against the wooden door as her father’s voice echoes in the hallway—

_“Allison! Open the door. Allison!”_

—and allowing her breathing to slow down despite the thundering stutter in her chest.

She glances outside, mentally counting the raindrops that hit her window, and her father’s voice fades out, eventually. The knots in her shoulders soften. She runs her fingers through her wet hair, letting out a breath she was holding, and struggles out of her damp clothes. She leaves them, as well as her bag, in a heap by her bathroom door, staining the carpet with mud and rainwater, and heads into the shower. 

She doesn’t bother with soap or shampoo for a while. Sitting on the tiles, letting the warm spray cascade down her back as she draws her knees close to her chest, is enough. It helps, not having to do anything except sit alone in her head and, for a moment, the pain goes away. 

Allison nuzzles her cheek against a knee, watching as water goes down the drain. Her eyes fall closed against her will, after a second; the back of her eyelids feel almost like sandpaper, but it doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts, not really, as a kind of numbness spreads in her chest. There is no pain, not physical or emotional, but her breath still hitches and jams in her throat for some reason.

She thinks of her mom, Stiles, Lydia, or Jackson even. She thinks of the crossbow sitting inside her bag, of the smell of ginger in the kitchen—a string of incoherent images, like a whirlwind of memories of pain and joy and everything and nothing.

She drags her fingers over her right hand, feeling calloused skin covered in fresh cuts and deep-seated scars. This is a part of her. 

Is this what she deserves?

Stiles isn’t talking to her, her dad is angry and possibly wanting to kill her, Jackson is a puzzle she doesn’t have the time to solve, and Lydia, well, Lydia has been ignoring her ever since the… incident. Allison tried talking to her to no avail, and then stopped altogether. But still, at school, she watched and waited, and Lydia never looked back. Not once in the entire day. There were no furtive glances or hidden smiles.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

***

In the morning, Stiles doesn’t remember having fallen asleep and, judging by the way his brain is telling him to kick his alarm clock into another dimension, he hasn’t gotten nearly enough rest.

He rolls over his good side, the one that doesn’t feel like it’s burning in acid, and sits up. The heels of his feet hit the side of the bed as he swings his legs over the edge, giving him a kick-start.

Taking a shower and dressing the lower part of his body isn’t as painful as he thought it would be; shrugging into a shirt, on the other hand, has him muttering all kinds of obscenities at his beloved t-shirt and flannel combo. He takes a moment to breathe, after he’s done, and manages to stand up straight without coming up with a new combination of _shitgoddamnfuck_.

By the time he walks into the kitchen to grab a bagel to-go, his jaw is hurting from clenching his teeth, but as he narrows his gaze at Allison sitting by the island, he makes a point of keeping his composure.

“Are you going to eat?” she asks him, even though she doesn’t lift her gaze from her muffin.

Stiles hears his jaw crack as he relaxes the muscles on his face and, apparently, Allison does too, judging by the way her head snaps up at him, a knot between her eyebrows. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, pulling the strap of his backpack further up his shoulder, and shakes his head. 

Allison nods. “Okay.”

“I’m not hungry,” he lies. She can see through it, he knows, but he does it out of spite. 

The look in her eyes tells him she can play that game as well as him. “Me neither. I just lost my appetite.”

She smiles, dimples and all, and is out the door before he is. He takes a small bite out of the muffin she was eating in an attempt to fool his stomach until lunch, and follows. He’s about to lock the front door when her car makes a weird sound and dies. He watches as she grips the steering wheel hard enough that her knuckles turn white, committed not to lift her eyes.

Eventually, she looks up at him standing by the door. Stiles doesn’t say a word, only gestures with his head toward his car and waits for her to join him.

***

Stiles is looking for a book in his locker when someone calls out for him. He lifts his gaze to find Scott coming over to him, Danny in tow.

“Hey, man.” Stiles says, turning back to his locker. God, it’s a freaking mess in there. “What’s up?”

“Coach said we have practice today.”

“Today?”

“Yeah, after school.”

Stiles gives up trying to find the book and slams his locker shut. He also doesn’t miss the frightened look on both Scott and Danny’s faces. He apologizes, “Sorry about that, but I’m sleep deprived, hungry, and not exactly in a good mood.”

Scott frowns at him. “Are you okay?”

“Dude, you totally ignored what I just said,” he says, tone flat, and stares at them.

Danny mimics Scott’s apprehensive look and Stiles takes a breath, which Danny seems to interpret as danger alert. 

“Good. That’s good. We’re just gonna go,” Danny tells him, pulling Scott away from Stiles by the collar of his shirt.

Stiles shakes his head at them and walks away to his English class, catching a glimpse of Allison and Lydia inside an empty classroom on his way.

***

After school is over, Stiles finds Allison in the library.

There’s no sign of Lydia nearby, so he assumes it’s safe to approach without being dragged into something he really doesn’t want part in. Allison smiles up at him, but soon goes back to her laptop, and he takes a seat opposite her. He winces at the pain that radiates from his right side when he tries to sit up straight, and decides to slump against the chair in the least painful way possible, feigning exhaustion.

“Are you okay?”

“No. I mean, yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he says, coughing into his shoulder to hide a groan. “I, uh—I have practice in a couple of minutes.”

“Oh.” Allison nods. “I thought that was tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but apparently coach Finstock has to go see someone or something tomorrow. I didn’t really ask.” Stiles presses a hand against his side under his flannel shirt. Allison doesn’t seem to notice; he goes on, “I could drive you home and come back, if you want.”

“No, that’s fine. I have research to do,” she says, gesturing at the book sitting by her laptop. Stiles glances down at it. Werewolves, really? “I can wait.”

Stiles nods, pressing harder against his ribs. Allison smiles at him and he smiles back, despite the pain. 

“I’ll see you later,” he says, picking up his backpack and making his way to the locker room.

***

“You can’t play? What do you mean, you can’t play?”

“I mean I can’t play, coach.”

“Well,” Finstock says, smiling. Then, he’s yelling all over Stiles’ face and Stiles can’t help but flinch in surprise, “Why the hell not?”

Stiles really does try not to be disgusted by the amount of saliva that just flew on him. He really, really does, but the thing is: it’s disgusting, and he can’t help but wipe it away from his cheek. Finstock only seems slightly angrier at this. 

“I have no stick.”

“No stick? What do you mean, you have no—”

“I mean I have no stick, coach, and I can’t exactly play lacrosse with my bare hands,” Stiles says, wriggling his fingers to make his point.

Finstock is silent for a second, but Stiles is prepared for the yell he lets out this time, “Greenberg! Come over here and give Stilinski your stick!”

“That’s not my—”

“What? You got your stick. Go!”

Stiles just stares as a desolated Greenberg passes him a stick.

“That’s not my name,” he mutters under his breath as he walks to the field.

***

After ten minutes of practice, Stiles figures that this might have been a bad idea. A bad, bad idea. A horrible idea, even, because he’s pretty sure there’s an internal organ threatening to pop somewhere inside his ribcage, and the feeling is not exactly pleasant.

“Just shoot the ball!”

Stiles narrows his gaze at the goal as he moves closer, positioning his body the best he can without feeling like he might rip something.

“Shoot the ball!”

One foot in front of the other. Step left, aim, shoot right, goal. Easy as that.

“Easy as that,” Stiles tells himself. “Easy as—”

He doesn’t know how or when he plummets to the ground, but he’s almost sure he hears a bone crack as he tumbles down face first into the grass. The sound is loud enough in his ears that he can’t hear himself scream, but he can feel it scratching up his throat and leaving his chest in what seems like a quiet hum.

The initial shock passes in a beat, but comes around amplified tenfold when he realizes he _can’t_ scream. Warmth fills up his mouth, like liquid copper on his tongue, and his screams come out in splutters.

He can see a blurred Jackson standing over him, but he can’t really make out the expression on Jackson’s face through his blurry vision. It’s like an abstract painting on a canvas—a blur of shapes and colors, but no real image except the one his brain makes up. 

He thinks he sees a hint of worry, or panic, but rules it out as just another image his mind conjured up.

Then, the lights go out.

***

Allison hears her name before she sees who’s calling her.

Her head snaps up toward the door as Danny comes through it, breathing heavy and still wearing his gear. She frowns, her mouth opening to ask a question her brain hasn’t processed yet, but he’s quicker than her, “Stiles. He—”

He doesn’t finish—or he does, she can’t be sure because she’s stopped listening—before she’s up on her feet, bag draped over one shoulder as she slips past him and into the hallway.

He’s quick to follow her, his presence like a dark, heavy cloud behind her back. She cranks her neck to the side, just enough so she can see him catching his breath, and asks, “Where?”

“Hospital,” he says. “Keys.”

Allison catches the keys midair, ignoring the gut-wrenching feeling pooling in her stomach, and speeds up her pace. In the parking lot, just as she’s about to enter Stiles’ Jeep, she freezes. Breathes.

“Let’s go,” she says, after a beat, and Danny answers with a breathy nod.

***

Stiles coordinates his thoughts as best as he can through the mix of quiet chatter and broken memories, but the chaos is getting louder with every other breath. He opens his eyes to a blurry ceiling and a smudge of a person sitting next to him.

He hears, “You’re going to be alright. We’re almost there,” before the noise settles.

He doesn’t recognize the voice, but that’s alright. 

His mind eases into darkness again.

***

The more times Danny explains to her what happened, the more Allison doesn’t know _what_ to feel.

She can’t deny a slight fondness she feels toward Jackson, even though she believes it might be unfounded, considering how little she knows him and how their relationship-slash-friendship hasn’t been anything more than means to an end, but still—to think that he would purposefully do something like this to Stiles… 

She doesn’t believe it. 

At this point, she’s happy to settle on a feeling stuck between fear and anger, and when Jackson appears at the end of the white, long hallway, the meter moves slightly up toward anger. She allows her fingers to clutch at the plastic seat under her, waiting.

Jackson inches closer, enough that she can hear the crack of his knuckles as his hands curl into fists. She doesn’t trust herself to speak, and she doesn’t utter a word, but neither does he.

The rustling of Danny’s clothes as he leaves is what breaks the silence, eventually, and she wipes a tear that escapes from the corner of one eye, turning her neck to look at Jackson.

“They said it’ll be a while,” Allison says.

She stares at him, watches as his right foot leaves a dirty smudge on the sparkling floor. He lifts his chin, never looking at her, his gaze fixed on a spot in front of him. A muscle pops in his jaw.

“I’m sorry.”

She breathes out a humorless chuckle. “You shouldn’t be apologizing to me.”

He echoes her and adds, “I know.”

***

The light hurts his eyes, but the faces next to him gradually come into focus.

“Dad,” he says, the word scratching at his throat like sandpaper. “Al.”

Small smiles tug on the corner of their lips, but their eyes don’t lie. Stiles takes a moment to acknowledge the room he’s in.

“What happened?”

After they tell him, a doctor comes by to recite him a list of medical procedures that he had to undergo, but he doesn’t hear much aside from, “…broken rib, punctured lung… stay here a while… observation…”

“Stiles?” Stiles picks up his gaze to look at his dad. “Answer the question.”

“What question?”

The doctor pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Have you been in an accident or a fight in the past few days?”

He stares at her.

She smiles. “Your friend, Mr. Mahealani,” she says, jerking her pen over her shoulder, “told me what happened during your lacrosse practice. It’s not consistent with a few older bruises you’ve sustained.”

Stiles’ gaze trails between her and his dad, and then to Danny standing just outside his room. He swallows. “Yeah. I was in a fight.”

“I see.”

Stiles watches as she scribbles something down along with her notes. “Well, I have all I need for now,” she tells him, smiling. “We’ll run some tests tomorrow and if everything runs smoothly, you can be discharged the day after at the latest.”

His dad mutters a quiet, “Thank you, doctor,” before she disappears out the door. 

In the morning, when he’s about to run his tests, he catches Jackson leaning against the wall in the middle of the hallway, eyes closed and head tilted back. Stiles’ body jerks in Jackson’s direction against his will, but Allison stops him before he can take another step forward.

Jackson’s eyes snap in his direction and Stiles holds the gaze for a split second before breaking out in a snarl, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

There’s a quick, almost imperceptible fickler of hurt—or shame, or worry, or fear, he doesn’t know—in Jackson’s expression, but it dissipates into proud nonchalance so fast that Stiles wonders if he didn’t just imagine it.

“Well, Argent,” Jackson says, a smile playing on his lips. “I didn’t wanna be charged with manslaughter in case someone ended up dead because of me.” Stiles is almost sure that translates into something else, but Jackson doesn’t give him time to think. “Even if it’s you.”

Stiles considers throwing back an insult, but settles on gaping at this pompous jackass and narrowing his eyes at that stupid, stupid face with that stupid smirk. 

Jackson rolls his eyes. “Just don’t die in there, alright?” he deadpans, and leaves without another word.

Lydia gives Jackson a strange look as she strides past him, in Stiles’ direction, and Stiles can’t help but sigh in resignation.

***

Scott asks him if he’s okay between the second and third period on the day he goes back to school. Stiles spares him a nod and a smile, not bothering to look away from the brand new lacrosse stick sitting in his locker.

“Stiles?” He hears, but doesn’t move when Scott comes up behind him, head hovering over his shoulder to peek inside his locker. “Is that a stick?”

“Yeah.”

“With adjustable height?”

Stiles gulps. “Yeah.”

“And a big red bow around it? _And_ a note?” Stiles bats Scott’s hand away when Scott reaches for it, grabbing the note and opening it close to his chest before Scott has a chance to read it. 

“Dude, let me see it.”

 _I’m sorry?_ it reads.

Stiles glances over his shoulder, scanning the hallway for a list of probable suspects. He does a double-check, just to be sure, and when his eyes land on Jackson and Jackson smirks at him, even though he’s nodding his head at whatever it is a very, very tall and leggy blonde is saying to him, Stiles doesn’t quite know what to do. He glances back and forth between Jackson and the note, mouth growing dry and tongue knotting around itself, until a familiar ring reminds him he has a class to attend.

Later that day, when he calls out Jackson’s name in that same hallway and Jackson turns around, a hand wrapped tight around the strap of his bag and another smirk splattered on his face, Stiles feels compelled to ask, “A question mark, really? You couldn’t have used a little heart-shaped period or something?”

Jackson shakes his head. “You haven’t done anything to deserve that, Argent.”

Stiles grabs the stick and points it in Jackson’s direction. “Yet.”

Maybe, just maybe, he can promote Jackson from fucking-shameless-jackass-that-uses-other-people-for-his-own-benefit to fucking-shameless-jackass-that-uses-other-people-for-his-own-benefit-and-has-a-weird-way-of-apologizing.

Maybe. 

Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11 - what to expect: a blackout, badass!Allison, and some Allydia _and_ Stackson loving. 
> 
> Stay tuned!


	11. until you feel a lot like me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! I know, it's been so long. I haven't abandoned you guys. I swear. 
> 
> This is a very, very long chapter and it was a bitch to write. I hope I can make it up to you, even a little. Prepare for the feels, prepare for the angst. This chapter hit me right in the face, to be honest. I think I like the final result.
> 
> I beta'd this myself, so there might be some mistakes here and there. Hopefully it doesn't take away from the story. I think I caught most of them.
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking around and please enjoy. Feedback are always a delight.

Lydia doesn’t show.

Allison stares at the message on her phone for a moment before dropping it back inside her bag and leaving the library.

As she takes long, quick strides toward the exit, she hears Stiles’ voice. She’s sure it’s him, even though she can’t make out what he’s saying. Curious, she slows down her pace, stopping behind a corner, short of making herself known.

She peeks from behind the wall and sees as Stiles points his lacrosse stick at somewhere, smiling, and then there’s a laugh that isn’t his. Stiles smiles wider, but it falters for a split second before he lowers his arm and turns to leave. He takes quick look over his shoulder and Allison hides behind the corner again—he didn’t see her, did he?—as panic ripples down her spine.

“Allison?”

Allison’s head flies up to find Jackson staring at her, his eyebrows knitted together and eyes searching for something on her face. She smiles despite herself, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and makes sound in her chest. Jackson only frowns further at her; she clears her throat and straightens her back.

“I was just leaving,” she says, and tries to shrug past him to no avail. His fingers dig into her arm.

“Really?”

Allison clears her throat. 

“Yes,” she tells him, looking down at where he’s holding her. “And I would let go if I were you.”

Jackson seems to consider his options before releasing his grip on her, but takes a step closer before she can move, and she takes a step back until she hits the wall.

“Jackson, what are you doing?”

He smirks down at her, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t know, Allison. What are _you_ doing? Spying on me?”

Allison fights the urge to roll her eyes, choosing to flip her and Jackson around instead, holding her forearm to Jackson’s throat. She can’t tell if he’s surprised or amused by it. 

“Yes,” she admits, “and if you do _anything_ to hurt Stiles, I’m going to hurt _you_.”

She doesn’t wait for a reply, but as she’s moving past the double doors, Jackson’s laugh follows her.

***

Stiles is sitting on the couch with a bowl in hand, running the spoon around the bowl’s edge, when Allison walks in.

She mutters a small, “Hey,” and he twists his neck to look at her, smiling around a mouthful of what seems like the month-old pistachio ice cream that was sitting in the freezer. She smiles back, taking a quick trip to kitchen to grab another spoon and leave her bag and keys on the countertop before settling beside him.

The mood still isn’t the best between them, but there’s no more palpable tension in the air, no awkward smiles or sideway glances. This is them, almost like they were before, and she’s okay with it.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, dipping her spoon into the bowl—it is pistachio ice cream, after all—and slumping into the couch.

“Good,” Stiles says with a nod, letting his gaze rest on her feet as she places them on the coffee table, crossing her ankles. After a short pause, he adds, “I thought you were coming straight back home.”

Allison watches as a frown appears and evens out in his brow in the span of three seconds. She chuckles to herself, earning a puzzled look from him. 

She says, “Yeah, I had something to take care of,” but what she doesn’t say is that she spent a good twenty minutes parked in front of Lydia’s place before deciding it wasn’t worth it, and then another thirty minutes shooting targets in the Beacon Hills preserve.

Stiles smiles down at her in sympathy and offers her more ice cream. She eyes it, taking a spoonful into her mouth and letting her eyes rest on the floor.

“This was mom’s favorite.”

Her gaze moves up to Stiles, trailing over fading bruises. “Yeah,” she says, allowing a smile to tug at the corners of her lips. “She would kill us for eating all of it.”

They laugh in unison, diving into the bowl and making their spoons click as they go for the same chunk of pistachio goodness. Allison closes her eyes as it melts on her tongue, and hears Stiles’ quiet, “I miss her.”

 _Me too_ , she adds, silently. _Me too_.

***

They have dinner at the table.

It’s a kind of uncomfortable that he’s used to—awkward silence, a lot of chewing around food that already has the consistency of baby food by the time he swallows, and small moments when his eyes meet Allison’s or his dad’s, but neither of them utters a word. And he doesn’t hate it, because he’d rather have awkward silence than awkward conversation, but he’s not exactly fond of either. 

They’re a dysfunctional family, and he understands that.

“How was school?”

Both he and Allison look up at the same time, gazes intertwining, before they answer with an impromptu, “Good,” that makes their dad chew around his chicken breast with extra deliberation. Stiles fills his mouth with mashed potatoes to avoid having to speak, and Allison tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, looking down at her plate as if it is the most interesting object in the world.

Then, when a loud ring cuts through the air, Allison excuses herself with a quiet, “I need to take this,” and Stiles mentally curses her for leaving him.

“How are you feeling, Stiles?” his dad asks once Allison is out of sight, and Stiles shifts under the icy stare.

He swallows the food with a gulp of water and answers without looking up, “I’m fine.”

“What about lacrosse?”

Stiles pauses his fork in midair. “I can’t go back yet,” he says, lifting his gaze. He’s surprised to find his dad smiling at him. 

He smiles back, and the conversation dies.

***

Stiles seriously contemplates not getting out of bed when his alarm clock buzzes to life in the early morning. He opens one eye, looking at the faint morning light falling in streams through his window, and sighs. His future in lacrosse—if he has any—depends on this.

He’s careful not to make noise as he drags himself to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat, but almost pops a vocal cord when he closes the fridge and turns around to find a .45 pointed at his face.

“Dad, what the f—” The air dies in his lungs as he fumbles with the apple in his hand. “Oh, my God. Are you trying to kill me? You’re trying to kill me!”

His dad sighs, safely tucking the gun back in its place. “Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed? You look like a thief.”

Stiles slaps his hood back and off his head. “A thief? Of what—apples? You’ve got to be kidding me, dad,” he says and, under his dad’s stare, he adds, “I was just going out for a run, alright? No need to go around scaring the crap out of me. Jesus Christ.”

His dad scrutinizes him for moment, but then nods, tapping him on the shoulder. “Alright. Be safe.”

Stiles takes a bite of his apple and loudly chews around a chunk of it. 

“I will,” he shouts after his dad’s back, “if no one points a gun at me while I’m at it.”

***

Stiles can’t say it’s a pleasant run—not with the constant pain in his muscles and burn in his chest—but it gets marginally worse as someone shoves past him, almost dislocating his right shoulder, and sprints a good ten feet ahead. He takes a moment to process _who_ that someone is, and when he does, he can’t say his morning _isn’t_ completely ruined.

He doesn’t call Jackson out on his bullshit, instead putting some distance between them. Jackson doesn’t look back, not once, and Stiles is stuck between feeling relieved and a little offended. Not that he appreciates Jackson’s attention, because he doesn’t; Jackson isn’t the kind of person Stiles is particularly fond of, but, on the other hand, he’s a lot like Lydia, and Stiles loves-hates Lydia.

Still, Stiles can’t bring himself to think of Jackson as anything other than a guy with a pretty ominously unstable moral compass and an ego bigger than the Universe itself. Lydia at least has some qualities to her. She’s smart and she’s soft under that hardened shell. Jackson—well, Stiles doesn’t think there _is_ anything under Jackson’s shell, except maybe a little remorse, masked insecurities and a whole lot of assholery. 

Insecurities Stiles can relate to, as well as remorse. Stiles may be even a little too familiar with remorse in particular, but to turn that into arrogance and insolence is something else, and Jackson has a knack for knowing when to be just that—arrogant and insolent.

For that reason, when Jackson turns a sharp corner that is in Stiles’ original course, Stiles makes sure to turn the other, even though it’ll make him late.

***

Stiles is late.

Finstock berates him with a glare, but gestures for him to take a seat and goes on with the class without another interruption. That is, until he announces they’ll be teaming up in fours for an extensive project, without being able to choose their partners. Finstock tries to speak amongst the dissatisfied groans that erupt in the classroom at the news, but has to resort to his deafening whistle when the whining doesn’t stop.

“Shut it!”

Stiles’ sigh gives way to a mournful groan when Finstock calls out his name, followed by Jackson’s. He opens his mouth to protest, but Finstock only raises a menacing finger in his direction and whistles loud enough that Stiles is sure he might be somewhat and permanently deaf.

Stiles doesn’t have to turn to see the smirk on Lydia’s face, but he does it nonetheless. He does feel a sense of strange satisfaction when that smirk is wiped right off as Finstock proceeds to call out her name, and then Allison’s. She gives him the death stare of the gods, but he can only give her the thumbs-up in return. Allison, on the other hand, seems stuck between perplexed and calculating, and Stiles knows her well enough to know that, if she passes this chance to get what she wants, she might as well never get it.

Lydia will get what’s coming to her, and Allison won’t exactly be gentle.

Stiles might as well buy some popcorn, sit back, and watch.

***

Allison can’t say she _wasn’t_ expecting Jackson to come after her during lunch.

He makes himself comfortable in the seat next to her while she eats and throws an arm around her shoulder, leaning closer to inspect the contents on her tray. He gives her a cocked eyebrow, poking her food with an inquisitive fork.

“What the hell are you eating, Argent?”

Allison clears her throat, peeling his arm off her shoulder. “It’s high in protein,” she says. “I’m training.” 

He gives her a half-scoff and shakes his head, stuffing his mouth with a sandwich. “For what?”

Allison smiles, and the confused look on Jackson’s face only makes it spread wider. She fishes an arrow from inside her bag and places it on the table between him and her. Jackson’s eyebrows shoot up.

“You’re training,” he says, like he’s measuring his words, and gestures at the arrow with a finger, “with arrows?”

“Yes.”

“For _what_?” When Allison doesn’t answer, he frowns. “Never mind. I don’t wanna know what kind of kinky stuff you’re into, Allison.”

Allison glances at Jackson’s left hand resting on the table and picks up the arrow, stabbing it between his middle and index finger. He gives an audible gulp, but then his expression eases into a smirk.

Allison goes back to eating.

***

Stiles is only slightly surprised when Lydia corners him as he’s leaving the restroom to go to the cafeteria. He figured she would be thrown off her game by Finstock’s sudden group project, but he was expecting her to come up with a solution on her own instead of coming to him.

This should be interesting.

He throws her a smile, says, “Is this about Al?”

He didn’t have to ask; he knows the answer, but this isn’t about him. It’s about Lydia. It’s about her saying it out loud, without reservations, without turning it into some kind of mind game that’ll only hurt people in the process, including Lydia herself. 

“Yeah,” Lydia says, walking behind him.

Stiles glances over his shoulder. He can almost hear the gears turning in her head. She’s up to something.

“I stood her up.” Stiles stops and turns to look at her. She repeats, “I stood her up.”

“You stood her up?” Stiles echoes her, in the hopes it’ll make his brain compute the meaning behind that. It doesn’t.

Judging by Lydia’s exasperated sigh, his face made a good job of portraying exactly that. Lydia flips her hair over shoulder, looping her arm through his and pulling.

“I told her I wanted to meet with her,” she says as they walk toward the cafeteria. “I texted her. But I—” Lydia stops speaking, as if measuring her words. “I froze.”

She goes on before Stiles can give an input, “I didn’t go meet her after school. I stood her up because I was…stuck. I didn’t think I could do it.”

“It?” Stiles asks, making a vague gesture with his free hand.

Lydia nods, purses her lips for a moment before saying, “It’s complicated.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’m serious, Stiles. Allison is not that weak.”

Stiles has to watch Lydia for a moment. He’s seen this vulnerable side of her before, more than once, but it’s been a while. Lydia’s maintained her façade for longer than he can remember. Seeing her this exposed, shoulders tense, voice trembling, is something else.

“You’re telling _me_ that?” Stiles says with a chuckle. “Al’s the strongest person I know, Lydia. She doesn’t need to hide behind a mask. She’s true to herself and that’s her power.”

“I have power,” Lydia offers, as if it makes what Stiles just said invalid.

Stiles rolls his eyes. 

“You do,” he says. “But you know what they say: with great power comes great responsibility.”

“And now my spidey senses are tingling, Stiles.”

“They should,” Stiles warns her. She smirks. “Don’t make that face. Al’s going to crush you.”

Stiles doesn’t comment on the way Lydia’s nails are digging into his arm by the time they get to the cafeteria. He silently follows her gaze when he notices it slipped to somewhere else, and finds Allison there. 

Lydia’s cherry-red lips stretch wider over her teeth as she whispers, “I can’t wait for it.”

***

Stiles can’t pinpoint exactly where in the spectrum lies the level of awkwardness between the four of them as they stand in the parking lot, facing each other in earsplitting silence. It’s definitely not on the good side.

Lydia is the one to break the ice, eventually. 

“So,” she says, raising her eyebrows, “are we doing this or not?”

Jackson eyes her from head to toe, making a small sound in the back of his throat. “And why are you so eager, exactly?”

“I’m not.”

“Really.” 

Lydia blinks at him, pouting her lips before narrowing her eyes at him and arguing, “Yes, real—”

“Guys!”

Stiles tries to hold back a laugh as both Lydia and Jackson shut their mouths and turn their attention to Allison. Allison’s smile sits somewhere between menacing and relieved. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. 

“Let’s just get it over with,” she says, walking to her car without waiting for an answer.

Lydia gives Stiles a look and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“C’mon, let’s just go home and do it,” he says without thinking about it, but then there’s Jackson raising an inquisitive eyebrow at him and... Oh, God. He raises a finger. “Shut up.”

“What?” Jackson asks, making Stiles want to punch that smug face in. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, well,” Stiles mumbles, shaking his head. “Your stupid face did.”

***

The situation hasn’t gotten at all better as they all stand in the driveway waiting for Stiles to find his keys. It does get significantly less awkward, however, when they finally step inside and Lydia makes a beeline for the liquor cabinet.

Stiles gapes at her as she stands there, holding a bottle of cheap whiskey in her hands (which Stiles is pretty sure his dad left there on purpose, in case he needed to kill them with alcohol poisoning) and raising her eyebrows as if to say, _what?_

“Believe me, Stiles,” Lydia says, taking a sip straight from the bottle, “we _are_ going to need this.”

Half a bottle and two out of ten pages of their Economics project later, Stiles is sure that if someone walked in on them at that exact moment, they would think it was a scene straight out of 90201. 

Their shoes are forgotten in the space between the front door and the couch, Lydia has her dress halfway down her shoulders, her head resting on Stiles’ lap and her ankles crossed on Allison’s knees while Allison types away on the laptop sitting on Lydia’s legs and Jackson plays dead on the couch opposite them, jeans rolled up to his knees and shirt barely covering his middle.

Now, contrary to what it looks like, they did not just have a foursome. Rather, it’s hot as hell in there and that crap that Stiles can’t even call whiskey has somehow ignited itself on fire inside their bodies and it’s _burning_. 

Come to think about it, Stiles thinks he would be much more inclined to idea of a foursome than being burned alive from the inside out, _if_ —and that is a pretty big if—his sister wasn’t in the equation. 

And his best friend. And Jackson.

Yeah… No. 

He’s almost sure a few of his neurons have been scorched to inexistence.

“Al,” he mumbles, tangling his fingers in Lydia’s hair. God, it’s so _red_ … And silky. He frowns at it. “Are you almost done?”

Allison takes a moment to answer, as if she didn’t realize Stiles directed the question to her.

“No.” She clears her throat. “You asked that five minutes ago. I’m two pages in.”

“Your brother has the attention span of a three-year-old,” Jackson chimes in from the other couch, dragging an arm over his eyes. “You should know that by now, Allison.”

Stiles is usually much quicker to retaliate, but his brain is only willing to think after a long minute. He says, “Hey, it’s a medical condition.”

Jackson snorts. “Yeah? And what would that be? I-Can’t-Think-For-Shit Syndrome?”

Stiles does _not_ know why he even takes time to consider if that’s a real condition, but he does. _Wow, I’m hammered_ , his mind throws at him. He tries to blink the haziness away.

“Guys,” Allison says after a moment. Stiles twists his neck to look at her. “How do you spell unconstitutionally?”

Stiles opens his mouth to speak, but comes up with nothing. Jackson doesn’t even make an effort, groaning instead, and Lydia’s brow furrows before she tries and fails miserably.

“U-N-C-O-N-S-T-U-T—wait.” Lydia blinks. “No, that’s U-N-C-O-N-S... Titutionally.”

Stiles tries not to laugh, but then Jackson breaks out in a loud snort and Stiles takes his cue. He’s half-expecting Lydia to smack him in the face or something, but she makes a sound that sounds like _meh_ and giggles, pulling a chuckle out of Allison as well. 

Stiles’ brain takes that as the funniest thing ever and he finds himself laughing until his eyes are wet and he’s choking on his own saliva. Lydia mutters a breathy, “Gross,” to him when he accidentally spits on her cheek, but she’s still laughing along with him as she wipes it away with the back of her hand.

As their laughter slowly dies out, a loud thunder shrieks outside.

Lydia lifts her head from Stiles’ lap to look at the window and says, “Oh, look. It’s raining.”

Stiles follows her gaze and watches for a moment as the raindrops fall against the window. The sound of it hitting the glass, growing stronger and louder by the second, along with Allison’s soft typing, makes a good background noise. Lydia lies back down on his lap and he finds his fingers lost in her hair again. As he raises his eyes, he finds Jackson sitting up on the other couch, arms hugging his knees and eyes fixed somewhere in Stiles’ lap.

Stiles stills his fingers and glances up again to find Jackson looking up at him. He holds Jackson’s gaze for a brief moment before averting his eyes. Lydia lets out a mocking chuckle and he gives her hair a pull, which earns him a punch on the shoulder and a, “Take a hint, Stiles,” that he isn’t sure has an actual meaning.

Coming from Lydia, it probably does, but he’s not about to waste his time thinking about it.

In response, his stomach grumbles.

“I’m hungry,” he says, eloquently.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Jackson bites out. Stiles glares at him and he smirks. 

Stiles shakes his head in response. He maneuvers Lydia out of his lap without making her kick Allison’s laptop, and announces, stretching his arms above his head, “I’m gonna—” _thunder_ “—go grab something to eat.”

And then they’re in the dark.

“Crap.”

Stiles blinks twice, hoping it will make him miraculously see something.

“Al?” he calls out, wondering why the hell there’s isn’t at least the faint light from the laptop illuminating the room. 

There’s a bit of a rustling of clothes and wood creaking beneath their feet before he gets an answer out of her, “I, uh, took the battery out.”

“Great.” Stiles rubs at his face. “That’s just great. Does someone have a phone, or something?”

Silence.

“Really? Nothing?” Someone clears their throat. “Are you kidding me?”

“I wasn’t expecting a blackout,” Lydia says, as if it’ll make anything better.

Stiles rolls his eyes.

“I heard that, Stiles.”

He’s about to do it again, but stops himself. “You scare me.”

“Good,” she says, and adds casually, “and you’re touching my breasts.”

Stiles flinches back hard enough to thump his back into something… or someone. And then he lunges himself back into Lydia’s direction, hitting his chin on what he assumes is her head and managing to bite his tongue in the process.

“Jesus fucking—” he mutters, the pain taking away his ability to finish the sentence.

He remains as still as possible in case anyone’s moving around, trying to keep from either injuring himself (more) or others. There’s some moving around; a hand skims up his back at the same time as he tries to steady himself on the first thing he can put his hands on, which strangely feels like Lydia’s boobs again. 

He apologizes under his breath before she seriously injures him and takes his hand away, praying that it was indeed Lydia’s and not Allison’s. 

Oh, God. 

He shakes his head. His brain is totally fried.

“Get a move on, Argent,” Jackson says from somewhere behind him, and—oh, that hand is still there. _Jackson’s_ hand. “Just hold on something and _move_.”

Stiles sighs, but does as he’s told without actively protesting Jackson’s commanding tone. That is, until that hand pushes him forward and he trips on someone’s shoes, almost going face first into the wall.

“Alright, dude,” he says, picking himself up, “you’re inflicting me with a great deal of mental anguish right now. I’m not sure I like it, so shut the hell up and keep your hands away from me.”

There’s a loud snort in the distance. This time, it’s not Jackson’s.

“You’re not _sure_ you like it?”

“You too, Lydia.”

“Me too what?”

“You too shut up.”

A pause.

“Got it,” she says.

“Stiles,” Allison calls out after a moment. “I can’t find the matches.”

“They should be there.”

“Well, they’re not.”

“And that’s my fault why?”

“I didn’t say it was your fault.”

“Your face did.”

“You can’t even _see_ her face,” someone—Jackson—says and smacks him across the head. “Ease up on the Jedi mind tricks, Obi-Wan.”

“I’m not even going to say anything to you, dude,” Stiles bites back. He pauses. “That _was_ a cool reference, though.”

“You just did.”

Stiles frowns. “Did what?”

“Say something to me, dumbass.”

“ _You’re_ a dumbass, asshat.”

“Shut up, Argent.”

“You shut up, dickwit.”

“Are you done? Because you’re starting to sound done, _Stiles_.”

Okay, so Stiles is definitely blaming this entire situation on the cheap booze, because he would not in his right mind think about Jackson hissing his name in his ear as anything other than disgusting, but here they are: Jackson draped over his back, Stiles half-bending over, and a growing sensation that this night might just end up in something akin to a twofoursome after all.

Not that he’s thinking about it.

He’s about to retort when the lights go up again, and, well, considering the position he’s in, his brain can’t come up with anything more intelligent than, “Uh...” when Allison stares at them in horror.

Lydia makes a small sound in her chest. “ _That_ was fast.”

Stiles detaches himself from Jackson fast enough that his head spins and he falls over the back of the couch, hitting the floor with a muffled thump. He scrambles to his feet in time to catch Jackson doubling over, snickering.

“You should’ve seen your face, Argent,” Jackson says between breaths. 

There’s a good chance that Stiles sees red because of either: a) a concussion or b) anger, but before he can act on it, Allison is holding him by his shirt. He gives her a look, but she shakes her head at him.

“Come on, Stiles. Let’s set up some candles before the light goes out again,” she says, nodding toward the kitchen.

Jackson is still laughing as Stiles follows her.

***

Allison sits on her bed cross-legged, putting the battery back in her laptop before resuming her work. She gives out a sigh when the two whole pages pop on the screen.

“It’s here,” she says to Lydia, who is standing by the door, poking her head out in the hallway. “Lydia?”

Lydia pokes her head back inside long enough to ask, “Are they going to be okay?” and sticks it outside again. 

Allison contemplates answering with a simple _yeah, of course_ , but decides against it. Jackson is without doubt trying to get on Stiles’ nerves, but that’s just what he does. From the little time Allison knows him, she’s been able to pick up an inherent need in Jackson to rile people up. She doesn’t know why, and she’s certain Jackson doesn’t care about the how.

Lydia must have picked up on it as well, or even more. Strangely, Allison is almost sure that she knows Jackson better than she knows Lydia, which doesn’t sit right with her. She’s known Lydia since before she was _Lydia_ , and still, she just can’t be _sure_. Lydia has too many layers, and Allison wants to cut through all of them.

“Allison?”

Allison blinks. “Huh?”

“Do you think they’re going to be okay? On their own, I mean.”

Allison bites the inside of her cheek, nodding. “Yeah, probably,” she says, casting her gaze back to the screen and rereading the same sentence five times in a row without being able to actually read it. “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” Lydia starts, “I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Allison blinks, nods again. “Yeah. He’s not going to hurt him.”

“He’d better not.”

Allison brings her gaze back up to Lydia while Lydia closes the door behind her. “You were never interested in him, were you?”

Lydia smirks, smoothing over her dress before taking a seat next to Allison. “Hm, not really, no,” she says, looking up. 

She’s trying to look coy; Allison isn’t buying it. Two can play this game.

“Really,” Allison muses out loud. She cocks an eyebrow at Lydia. “What happened?”

“Oh, _Allison_.” Lydia glides one finger up and down Allison’s bare arm, humming. “You know what happened.”

Allison freezes, counting back from ten. Not unlike Jackson, Lydia has a strange knack for riling people up. Or rather, riling _one_ person up. Allison can’t decide on whether to complain about it or enjoy it. Her mind is ready to protest, but her body is set on the latter (especially when Lydia’s finger goes from her arm to her thigh, to her knee, and then back up again).

“Allison,” Lydia whispers in Allison’s ear, her lips brushing up against Allison’s skin.

Allison means this as a warning, but it comes out as a strangled whimper, “ _Lydia_.”

Lydia smiles.

***

Stiles can’t believe he let Lydia drag him into this.

She clearly has an ulterior motive, which probably involves her making out with his sister pretty much under his nose (or rather, on the other side of the hall, but _semantics_ , man) and an evil scheme of sorts to get him alone in a room with Jackson, of all people.

Stiles types up a sentence with more force than he intended, almost making the A get stuck on his keyboard. Jackson sighs, his breath brushing up against Stiles’ neck.

“What the fuck are you doing, Argent?”

Stiles closes his eyes, counting back from a hundred. 

“What the fuck are _you_ doing? Absolutely nothing, except annoy the hell out of me,” Stiles says, gesturing between them. “Also, personal space, dude.”

“I’m trying to see,” Jackson retorts, as if it’s the answer to the biggest mystery in the Universe.

“Then go buy some freakin’ glasses or something,” Stiles bites back. “Just keep your distance, man. Jesus Christ.”

He can almost _hear_ Jackson’s smirk.

“Why, Argent? Am I making you uncomfortable?”

 _Yes, actually_ , is what Stiles wants to say, but doesn’t. Instead, he stares at the glass of whiskey sitting on his desk, stuck on whether to _not_ drink it and have to stand Jackson while being half-sober or drink it and have to stand Jackson while pleasantly buzzed and suffer from a phenomenal hangover in the morning. _Your choice_ , his brain tells him, and he mentally shouts back, _Thanks, brain_ , before grabbing the glass and downing it in one go.

“Holy mother of—” he coughs up, feeling like he just drank a dose of liquid fire.

Jackson taps him on the back. “Don’t die on me, Argent, or I’ll let you rot in this room by yourself.”

“You’re so considerate,” Stiles shoots back, going back to typing up the second half of project. His fingers slide against the keyboard with ease. 

Yeah, okay, that whiskey might not be so bad.

***

Allison makes a halfconscious decision to revel in the moment rather than hold a grudge against Lydia’s constant mind games and assertion of power. Honestly, it’s not like having Lydia straddle her hips in a candlelit room is anything to even complain about.

_Honestly._

Lydia is stunning. Her hair is even more vivid than usual, framing her face like a perfect piece of artwork, complimented by the auburn light that washes over it, and Allison can’t look away. Lydia smirks down at her, as if knowing what’s going on in her head, and runs her hand over Allison’s neck. 

Lydia lowers herself, slowly, letting her hair brush up against Allison’s skin. “Tell me what you want, Allison,” she whispers.

Allison’s whole body shakes with the intensity of Lydia’s voice. She has to close her eyes, clutching the sheets beneath her until her knuckles crack. 

She doesn’t know how they got to this point; Lydia led them to it with Allison blindfolded, guided them to this moment right here. This moment of tentative touches and wobbly breaths, of Allison’s hand skimming up Lydia’s dress and of Lydia’s quiet moan against Allison’s ear as Allison’s fingers dig into the soft flesh.

“I want,” Allison starts, licks her lips, “you.”

Allison doesn’t give Lydia time to react. She grips the back of Lydia’s thighs and rolls them over until she has Lydia beneath her, legs around her waist and a splash of red hair on her mattress.

“Allison,” is all Lydia says, and it sounds like a promise to Allison’s ears.

Allison smiles, raising her arms to throw her shirt over her head with Lydia’s help. Lydia falls back against the bed while Allison reaches over to the nightstand to grab the hunting knife she keeps taped to the back. Lydia eyes the blade with something akin to curiosity and fascination, as if to ask _are you going to use this on me?_ and _how?_ and _is it going to hurt?_

Allison smiles and responds by taking the hem of Lydia’s dress and slicing it up with the knife until the knife stops above Lydia’s collarbone. Lydia lets out a whimper, tightening her legs around Allison’s body.

“That was a perfectly fine dress,” Lydia says, though it doesn’t sound like a protest, more like an observation.

Allison lowers herself so she has her mouth pressed to Lydia’s ear. “I want _you_ , Lydia,” she whispers, her teeth sinking into the lobe for a brief moment, “and I’m going to take my time.”

***

“This crap is so bad,” Stiles says, raising the glass in the air and swirling it to see the amber liquid almost spill over the rim.

They’re half-sprawled on Stiles’ bed, their half of the Economics project long forgotten on the floor, in contented drunken bliss as the rain continues to fall against the window. The candles are flicking with the gush of wind coming from the hallway, blowing a set of bizarre shadows on the wall that has them only mildly entertained.

“That one looks like a wolf,” Stiles says, pointing at the wall. 

“I don’t see it.”

“Just tilt your head like this,” Stiles offers and grabs Jackson’s head, tilting it to the left. Jackson’s cheek touches Stiles’ shoulder for a split second. He swallows, snapping his head back up. “See it now?”

Jackson snorts. “That’s a crappy looking wolf.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

Jackson seems to think about it for a moment before deciding that Stiles is right and voicing as much, nodding. He straightens his back, putting some distance between him and Stiles once more, and chuckles. Stiles glares at him.

He shrugs, asks, “And whose brilliant idea was this again? Splitting the work?” He gestures between them and the laptop on the floor, and then takes a long gulp of whiskey straight out of the bottle. “Because it was a stupid idea.”

Stiles snatches the bottle from him. 

“It was Lydia’s,” Stiles says, and adds, “and now she’s probably making out with my sister.”

“Oh, right,” Jackson mutters, like he just recalled a long lost memory. “About that—”

“Dude.”

Jackson has the nerve to look confused. Stiles facepalms. 

“That’s my sister we’re talking about. I really don’t want to delve further into that subject.”

Jackson shrugs. “Why not?”

Stiles gapes at Jackson, narrowing his eyes at him and hoping Jackson gets the murderous intent. 

He feels the need to voice his thoughts when Jackson’s puzzled expression doesn’t change, “Are you seriously asking me why I don’t want to imagine _my own sister_ getting hot and heavy with another girl?”

“Yes?” Jackson says, cocking an eyebrow at Stiles. Then, after a moment, the thought seems to sink in and he glances away. “Right.”

They fall into a kind of comfortable silence, surrounded by the lone sound of the pounding rain outside. Stiles takes another sip of whiskey and then hands the bottle to Jackson, who takes it without a word, but pauses before drinking from it. He takes a look at Stiles, but when Stiles raises his eyebrows at him in response, he rolls his eyes and swallows down the rest of the drink.

***

Lydia closes her lips around Allison’s fingers. Allison moans against the sweat-covered skin of Lydia’s neck, tasting salt and perfume and _Lydia_ as her tongue sneaks out for a taste. Lydia’s mouth releases her with a wet pop, which manages to get another moan out of her.

“Are you sure?” she asks while Lydia’s guiding her hand lower and lower.

Lydia gives a dissatisfied groan, throwing her head back and exposing more of her neck. Allison considers taking a bite at it, but Lydia recomposes herself before she can.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Lydia tells her.

Allison nods, letting Lydia push her hand past Lydia’s navel until she meets the silky fabric of Lydia’s underwear. Allison sits back, pushes it aside, and closes her eyes when her fingers rub against Lydia’s skin.

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” she says.

Lydia smirks. Allison’s fingers slide in, wet.

“Liar.”

***

The first time Stiles hears it, he’s pretty sure he’s the only one who did. The second time he hears it, Jackson does as well and shoots him a look that’s all amusement and horror muddled up into one.

“Oh, my God,” Stiles protests, covering his ears. “I’m going to kill them.”

Jackson snorts, but doesn’t say a word. Instead, he places the empty bottle of whiskey aside and tries to get to his feet, losing his balance in the process and falling back on Stiles’ bed. Stiles lets out a chuckle-hiccup hybrid and earns an elbow to the side.

“I’m not that drunk, Argent,” Jackson tries to reason, but Stiles likes to think that actions speak louder than words, and Jackson’s actions, well, they’re all on a pretty high-level of drunkenness.

“Keep telling yourself that, buddy.” Stiles slaps Jackson’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze before breaking contact. Stiles doesn’t know what to do when Jackson doesn’t bite back a response, except ask, “You okay?”

Jackson nods, unbuttoning the third button on his shirt. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Stiles nods back, even though he’s not buying it. Jackson glances up at him, eyes dancing. Stiles has the feeling Jackson wants to say something, but he’s not sure he wants to hear it, whatever it is.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Their gazes lock and hold. Met with silence, Stiles repeats the question, “For what?”

Jackson averts his eyes after a long minute. His swallow rings loud in Stiles’ ears. “I just am.”

“Oh,” is all Stiles can offer without stuttering. 

It sounds as if Jackson isn’t apologizing to Stiles alone, but the world in general. There’s guilt dripping in his words and uncertainty dancing in his eyes, and it’s contagious enough that Stiles forgets how to breathe for a moment. He knows that feeling. He knows what it’s like to wake up one morning and realize that something has gone wrong because of you. Because you couldn’t act, because you _didn’t_ act.

“Me too.” Jackson’s head snaps in his direction. He offers Jackson a tight smile, and says, “I’m sorry too.”

Jackson doesn’t ask for what.

“The night my mom died, she tried to call me first. I didn’t have my phone on me. I’d lost it at some stupid party I was at with Al,” Stiles says without being asked to. Jackson’s eyes are heavy on him. “I didn’t know where Al was, either. Scott dragged her to some room. The music was so loud. She didn’t hear me call her name.”

_”Here, hold my drink,” Allison told him, grabbing his hand and wrapping his fingers around the plastic cup. “I’ll just be a minute.”_

_Stiles stood there, in the middle of that immense crowd, and watched as Allison talked to Scott for a moment before he started leading her away. Stiles called out her name once, but she didn’t turn to look at him._

_Before he could call out her name again, someone bumped into him, sending him flying to the ground. He braced himself on his arms to avoid falling on his face while Allison’s drink escaped his hand and sank into the carpet._

_“Fuck,” Stiles said as he scrambled to his feet and headed to the bar for another drink._

“I hadn’t noticed I’d lost my phone until the party was over and I found it on the floor. Al was nowhere to be seen, and I had fourteen missed calls from my mom’s phone. Fourteen,” Stiles says, keeping his voice from breaking. He wipes at his cheeks with the back of a hand and doesn’t dare look at Jackson. “I picked up the fifteenth. It was Al.”

_“Al? Speak slower, I can’t hear you,” Stiles said into the phone. He took it away from his ear for a moment as the other end went silent, checking to see if he’d been disconnected. It was hard to see through the cracked screen, but the call was still on. “Al?”_

_This time, he could hear fragments of his sister’s voice,_ “Mom… hospital… where… you… please...”

_Stiles’ breath hitched so hard he thought he was going to spit out his lungs._

_Fuck._

_“Al, I can’t hear you. You’re at the hospital?”_

_The line went dead._

“She and my dad were at the hospital. My mom was—” Stiles bites the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. His nails dig into his palm. “She was gone by the time I got there.”

Stiles doesn’t hold back the tears, even though his mom would hate to see him like this. His chest hurts with guilt, with sorrow, with the dreadful feeling that _he should have been there_ , and it tightens until it feels like he’ll collapse. He doesn’t.

Instead, he looks up at the ceiling and he finally, _finally_ can breathe. The ceiling stares down at him, as if taunting him with its lifeless presence. It’s mocking him, and it’s crushing him.

Then, there’s a hand on the back of his head and a mouth on his.

***

Allison lies next to Lydia’s still trembling body, ghosting her fingers over Lydia’s navel as Lydia rides out her orgasm.

She doesn’t move a muscle when Lydia sits up with the determination of a predator catching its prey and settles between her legs. Lydia taps her knees and she bends it, closing her eyes when Lydia’s tongue skims up the inside of her thighs.

***

Stiles goes still against Jackson’s mouth.

He doesn’t have the strength to struggle, but it doesn’t last long enough for him to need to. 

“I’m sorry,” Jackson says, dry, and wipes at his mouth.

Stiles isn’t sure he should be offended by the gesture. He settles in the middle.

“For what?” he throws back and, before Jackson can ruin the moment, locks their mouths together.

Jackson kisses like he does everything else: taking control and fighting for space. His hands skim up Stiles’ shirt, skilled fingers working against sweat and skin, and his hands go up and up until he throws the shirt over Stiles’ head and attaches his mouth to Stiles’ chest. 

Stiles doesn’t try to turn the tables. He lets Jackson’s teeth scrape at his skin, leaving bruises to be soothed by a determined tongue later. He doesn’t protest when he’s pushed back against the mattress and bitten in the neck until it stings. He doesn’t blink when Jackson unbuttons his jeans and exposes him. He doesn’t breathe when Jackson straddles him and takes off his own clothes until they are only skin and sweat and ragged breaths and a tangle of limbs and tongues.

It might matter in the morning, when the bliss is gone and his mind is clear.

Right now, he doesn’t _care_. 

In the morning, he might not even remember.


	12. would you have it any other way?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, man. I managed to get this one out sooner than I expected. Hopefully the next one will follow the same path. I'm still sorry for taking a whole month to post, though. At least it wasn't two? *runs*
> 
> No beta as usual, so forgive me for any blatant mistakes. I think I caught most of 'em.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's still reading, commenting, and whatnot. Oh, and prepare yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, this is a Stiles-centric chapter and he's speaking French!
> 
> Enjoy. :-)

Stiles doesn’t, in fact, forget what happens. He remembers every detail, ones a bit hazier than others, up until that moment his mind spun around and slammed right against an imaginary wall, shutting down. He remembers, clearly enough, that he didn’t get to do anything aside from shedding his clothes and slipping in a few kisses and gropes here and there before it all went black. For that exact reason, he can’t say it’s completely unexpected to wake up to an empty bed.

He opens one eye to peek at his room, finding that Jackson at least had the sensibility to worry about picking up the clothes on the floor and leaving them in Stiles’ desk chair, along with Stiles’ laptop. 

Stiles figures if can’t have a decent, drunken one night stand with a guy he can barely even hold a conversation with, he can at least have this—whatever _this_ is.

***

His dad is trying his hand at making breakfast when Stiles stumbles into the kitchen, still half-asleep and in yesterday’s clothes. He gives Stiles a glance over his shoulder before doing a double-take that has Stiles thinking there is probably a hickey somewhere in the vicinity of his neck.

Stiles gives out a long sigh and tumbles down on a stool, sandwiched between Lydia and Allison, who are trying and failing miserably at concealing the fact that Lydia is wearing Allison’s clothes and looks like she had one hell of a night. Stiles subconsciously blames the remnants of alcohol in his bloodstream for the mental image.

For a moment, he watches his dad cook before his eyes drift away to Lydia. He stares at the long, although superficial, scrape on her right thigh and she clears her throat, kicking him behind the countertop.

“Quit it, Stiles,” she tells him through her teeth, keeping the smile on her face when his dad turns to look at them. “Quit staring at it.”

“Sure, because a huge gash on your thigh is not something to stare at.”

Lydia gives him a look before shrugging and whispering back, “There might have been knives involved.”

“Involved _how_?” Stiles muses, and almost falls from his stool trying to stop Lydia from speaking as she opens her mouth to give him an actual answer, which Stiles suspects is a very much detailed and sordid one. “Oh, God. You were going to answer that! Don’t answer that. I don’t wanna know.”

“You asked.”

“It was a rhetorical question.”

“How was I supposed to know?”

“Aren’t you _supposed_ to be a—”

Lydia narrows her eyes at him and cuts him off before he can finish, “A genius, yes. Not psychic, Stiles.”

Stiles can only blink back at her for a second. She rolls her eyes. Allison stifles a chuckle.

“You seriously scare me sometimes, Lydia,” he whispers, meaning for her not to hear. 

Judging by the second kick to the shin that morning, though, she heard him pretty well. Stiles lets out a groan, earning a weirded-out look from his dad. 

He smiles in return, gesturing toward Lydia with his hand, and says, “She can’t help it, dad. She loves me.”

There’s a brief exchange of confused frowns and raised eyebrows before his dad turns the stove off and sets a few plates onto the marble countertop. Stiles takes a couple of bagels and Allison pours milk and Fruit Loops into a bowl while Lydia goes straight for the pancakes, taking five of them into her plate at once.

Lydia stuffs a bite into her mouth. “What?” she asks, chewing. “I’m hungry.”

Stiles’ eyes meet his dad’s, and then Allison’s, who hides behind her hair and takes a spoonful of Fruit Loops into her mouth. Stiles is pretty sure he could have heard the clank of the metal against her teeth all the way from his room. He clears his throat.

“Rough night?” 

Allison’s head snaps up toward their dad. “I’m sorry?”

Their dad makes a point of looking at the clothes Lydia’s wearing, then at the hickey on Stiles’ neck, and back at Allison before reiterating, “Rough night?”

There’s roughly a minute of silence.

“I fell,” Lydia and Stiles say in unison. They exchange a look. Lydia fidgets.

“I fell,” Lydia repeats, “and ruined my dress.”

“In Allison’s bed,” Stiles says through an exaggerated cough and earns his third kick that morning. Thankfully (or not) for them, it goes right over his dad’s head, who’s still staring at them and waiting for an actual answer.

Stiles clears his throat and decides to go for a more believable approach, “Yeah, it’s true, dad. She did leave something out, though.”

The intensity of both Lydia and Allison’s glare on him makes him smirk on the inside. Lydia violently stabs a pancake with her fork, all the while thrashing Stiles with her eyes. Allison shoots metaphorical arrows at him.

“She left out the part where she drowned herself a bottle of whiskey first,” Stiles offers, not missing the half-relieved sigh that comes from Lydia. 

“Right,” his dad says, nodding, but Stiles has a feeling there will be more questions to come later.

Shrugging, he goes back to his bagels. The other three quickly follow his lead and go back to their respective food. 

After a half hour, when Stiles has a bagel half-inside his mouth, Lydia announces that she has to go. Allison’s spoon stops in midair, milk dripping back into her bowl of cereal.

Oh. That can’t be good.

“What?” Allison asks, turning her neck to look at Lydia. 

Stiles really didn’t like the few times that look was directed at him. He really, really didn’t. Lydia, on the other hand… Is that a smirk? 

Lydia glances up, and then back at Allison, pouting. “I said,” she tells Allison, wiping at the corners of her mouth with a finger, “that I have to go.”

Allison looks short of doing something dangerous with that spoon, but then a smirk breaks on her lips. She takes the spoon in and out of her mouth, making a wet sound Stiles honestly would’ve rather not heard coming from his sister, and Lydia tries her best to be inconspicuous with her moan.

“Then go,” is what Allison says after she’s finished chewing around her Fruit Loops. 

Stiles has the arising suspicion that he’s got himself in the middle of some kind of prearranged game between them. He doesn’t comment on it.

“Fine,” Lydia announces, jumping off her stool. She smoothens out her—Allison’s—skirt and gives it a little pull. “Thank you for breakfast, Mr. Argent.”

His dad smiles. “No problem. Any friend of Stiles’ is welcome.”

Lydia smiles back at him and then at Allison before turning to Stiles and motioning for him to follow her. He swallows his bagel as best as he can and walks with her to the—

“—what the hell happened to the door?”

Stiles turns back to look at his dad and Allison, who in turn waves a dismissive hand at him and says, “Dad forgot his key last night.”

Leave it to Allison not to bat an eye when their dad kicks a hole through their front door. He’s almost sure she would have done the same thing.

He hopelessly glances at Lydia for validation. Lydia shrugs, as if to say _don’t ask me_ , and steps through the hole that was supposed to be their front door. Stiles follows her after his brain computes the information.

They stand at the driveway for a long, silent minute. Lydia tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and Stiles shoves his hands inside his pockets, finding himself entailed once again by the cut on Lydia’s thigh.

“It’s nothing, Stiles,” she says, making his neck snap up and back to her face. “Really.”

Stiles can’t help but give a small chuckle at her smile; he hasn’t seen that one in a while. 

“Good,” he tells her, taking one hand to pet her hair. “Oh, and just so you know, if you hurt her—”

“—unless she asks me to.”

Stiles was hoping she wouldn’t say that, but alas. “Unless she asks you to,” he amends, “I’ll be seriously mad at you.”

“I know.” Lydia smiles at him. Damn, she looks a lot nicer like this. “Thank you, Stiles.”

She puts her left hand on his arm and pulls him closer until she’s buried in his chest. Stiles kisses the top of her head, smelling coconut shampoo and something distinctly Allison, and lets her go with a breathy chuckle.

He smiles down at her, says, “No problem,” and turns to go back inside, only to find Allison standing on the doorstep, smiling at him.

“Shut up,” he tells her, but can’t help but smile back.

***

Allison is still outside with Lydia when Stiles tumbles down onto the couch and his dad comes to find him.

Stiles tries not to overthink the fact that there’s a gun between them, though a disassembled one, because this is Chris Argent, and Chris Argent is not exactly known for his subtlety. Well, the Argents aren’t exactly a subtle bunch in general, except maybe Allison when she’s not having panic attacks (which, strangely, Stiles hasn’t seen her have in a while) and his dad when he’s on a job.

“You cleaning it?” Stiles asks, more to make conversation than anything else.

His dad lets the question hang in the air for a moment, long enough for Stiles to know that, if his dad were to vocalize an answer, it’d probably be something along the lines of _what do you think, dumbass?_ Thankfully for Stiles, he only nods, setting the disassembled gun onto the table between them.

Stiles tries not to hold eye contact for long as his dad lowers himself on the couch opposite Stiles, one arm splayed out along the back and his legs crossed. Stiles knows exactly what that look is, and it is not good.

“So, Stiles—”

“You’re going to interrogate me, aren’t you?” Stiles says with a groan, covering his face with his hands.

“Do I have to?”

Stiles groans louder and lets his arms fall to his sides. “No?”

His dad smirks. “So, in other words, yes.”

Stiles fidgets under the scrutinizing look and terrifying smirk. “Maybe,” he concedes, trying his hardest to keep his gaze fixed on the floor. 

_Do not look at those evil blue yes, do not look at those evil blue eyes_ , Stiles tells himself in a mental mantra, but then his dad clears his throat and Stiles glances up and locks his gaze in those evil blue eyes of doom. Fuck his life.

“Dad, _please_.”

“Is there something you need to tell me?”

Stiles raises his eyebrows and scratches a spot on his cheek. “I, uh—no? Not really, no.”

His dad raises his chin in return, eyes narrowing. “Really.”

Honestly, Stiles sees no way out other than:

“I might have contributed to the disappearance of that bottle of whiskey, which, by the way, is the worst possible whiskey in the history of ever and I honestly don’t know what you were thinking when you bought it, except maybe giving your own children alcohol poisoning and possibly a horrible and agonizing _death_ ,” Stiles splutters at once, as fast as he can, even though he’s sure his dad hasn’t failed to catch even one word. He takes a breath. “Oh, my God. I have a headache.”

His dad’s looking very satisfied with that cacophony of words. Stiles isn’t sure that’s a good thing.

“ _Maybe_ , if my own children were _responsible_ children, they wouldn’t have alcohol poisoning or the possibility of death because _they wouldn’t have drunk an entire bottle of whiskey in the first place_.”

Yeah, Stiles doesn’t like it. At all. 

Also, he has to stop and blink a few times before thinking of a comeback, because that sentence was full of emphasis and Stiles’ brain has to shift gears to process it all.

Stiles swallows, offers, “But would it be okay, say, if said children only drank, like, two thirds of said bottle and then threw the rest down the drain?” He lifts a finger as his dad opens his mouth to answer. “Wait, no. Don’t answer that.”

His dad rolls his eyes. “What about Lydia?”

“Lydia’s complicated.”

“Un-complicate it, Stiles.”

“I can’t. I—” Stiles swallows his words. He shakes his head. “Just trust me, dad. Lydia’s fine, I’m fine, Al’s fine—”

“We really are fine, dad.”

Stiles is almost sure he’s pulled a muscle in his neck with the force and speed that he turns to look at Allison. She smiles down at them, all teeth and dimples and bright eyes, and then gestures at the front door.

“I think we really need to fix that. It’s going to rain tonight,” she says, and then disappears up the stairway.

Stiles and his dad exchange a look.

Yeah, they should probably fix that.

***

Allison waits in her room until she hears Stiles’ footsteps go past her door, and then Stiles’ door closes with a soft click. She waits a second longer before poking her head outside to check if they’re in the clear, and makes her way to Stiles’ room.

She stays there with her fist raised for a long minute, not quite wanting to knock and not quite wanting to run away either. The uncanny impression of déjà vu sits in the back of her mind.

“Come in, Al,” Stiles’ voice comes from inside, and Allison doesn’t bother being surprised by Stiles’ sixth sense when it comes to her. 

She steps inside and lets the door close behind her, smiles at him. “I think we need to talk.”

Stiles gives her the barest hint of a smile back, averting his eyes from his laptop long enough for her to see that smile fade, and says, “About what? You and Lydia?”

“No,” Allison tells him, and lets herself fall into his bed, watching as he gives a nervous couple of spins on his desk chair. “About you and Jackson.”

Stiles stops spinning. Allison almost stops breathing. Stiles’ gaze on her makes her avert her eyes, letting them navigate over the familiar blue of the walls and the old posters and magazines scattered across the room. 

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

Allison finds the courage to meet Stiles’ gaze, but he’s the one that looks away this time, spinning halfway until he’s facing his laptop and desk again. He starts typing away on the keyboard and Allison listens to the sound in silence, studying the way the tendons and muscles work in Stiles’ hand and forearm as he does so.

She tries not to press the subject because she’s been in his shoes. She was the one that came to Stiles, that night, to ask about Lydia without actually asking it, to make sure that Stiles was Lydia’s best friend and nothing more, and she _knows_. She knows better than anyone what it’s like to step around eggshells, to ignore the problem at hand in the hopes it’ll simply fade away with time. 

And, more than that, she knows that ignoring the problem won’t solve it. It’ll just make you tired and worn when it finally hits you in the face with the brevity of a punch to the gut.

“That’s fine,” she says. 

Stiles glances back over his shoulder, eyebrows shot up as if he were surprised by her impartiality, by the lack of an argument about willpower and doing what’s right, not what’s the easiest. 

“You should probably cover that up, though,” Allison tells him, gesturing at her own neck with a finger as she rises from her spot on his bed. “Dad’s going to be asking questions if you don’t.”

“More than he already did?”

Allison stops with her hand on the doorknob, throwing him a smile over her shoulder. “More than he already did,” she says, and leaves.

She ignores the groan that echoes in the hallway and follows her all the way to her room.

***

It rains that night.

Stiles watches, through his window, as his dad leaves with an arsenal in his trunk, and then there’s Allison. Allison leaves shortly after him, carrying nothing but the clothes on her body and her car keys.

Stiles knows where she’s going, and he’s happy for her. He’s happy for Lydia.

He turns his attention back to his Economics project, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

It’s a lonely Saturday night, that night.

***

Allison is back in the morning, but not his dad.

Stiles doesn’t utter a word as he opens the fridge to grab some soda and leftover pizza from God only knows when, but he smiles back at Allison when she smiles at him from behind a book. He slumps down on the stool next to her and munches down on a cold slice of pizza as silence sets between them.

Stiles almost chokes on a chunk of pepperoni when Allison’s phone rings. She pats him on the back a few times before glancing at the screen and excusing herself to the living room. She comes back with an apologetic smile.

“I need to go,” she tells him, grabbing the book from the countertop. “I’ll be back soon.”

Stiles nods and she disappears upstairs for a minute before she’s out the door to Lydia’s.

Sunday is shaping up to be as lonely as Saturday, but at least it isn’t raining. 

“Yet,” Stiles says to the empty house, just as a loud thunder strikes outside.

He should probably start baking something.

***

Allison waits for Jackson at an abandoned house in the middle of the Beacon Hills preserve. She takes some time to go inside and check it out while Jackson doesn’t show, cruising through the dust-covered floor with the odd sensation that the burnt walls are looking down at her.

She remembers her mom telling her about a fire there that killed an entire family, but she never bothered to look for the house. She’s pretty sure Stiles and Scott came ghost-hunting in it back when Allison thought dating Scott would be a good idea. They came back empty handed, but earned a few bruises from not being careful enough. Stiles still has a scar on his lower back from falling through a hole in the stairs; Allison had to bandage him while he listened to their mom’s scolding. Allison laughs as she stops at the foot of the staircase and, truthfully enough, there’s a hole there big enough to fit Stiles.

“He wasn’t making it up,” she mutters to herself, shaking her head.

“Are you talking to yourself, Argent?”

Allison rolls her eyes, turning to look at Jackson. “Actually, yes,” she tells him. She throws her thumb over her shoulder. “That was Stiles’ doing.”

Jackson walks over to her and takes one look at the stairs before breaking into a smile, then a chuckle. “Remind me, why am I not surprised?”

She laughs, walking past him and out the door. She lowers herself onto the front porch, feet dangling off the edge. “Of all places, why are we meeting here?”

“I don’t want us to be seen.”

Allison’s eyebrows shoot up. “Why? Are you going to rape and kill me?” 

“Yes, Allison, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. Shame I forgot to tell you to bring your bow and arrow. I’ve always thought that an arrow through the head would be a poetic way of killing someone.”

“I knew there was something wrong with you,” Allison teases him. Jackson glares at her, his jaw twitching. “Is this about Stiles?”

“Yes.” 

Allison stays silent for a moment. That was definitely a direct answer.

Jackson makes himself comfortable next to her, feet dangling off the porch along with hers. They exchange a curt smile, followed by a sigh from both of them. 

“Your moron of a brother is ruining my life,” Jackson says, then, as if it’s the most trivial thing a person like him can say to someone like her. He halfheartedly shrugs when she gives him a look. 

Allison can’t fight a smile.

“Really,” she muses, shaking her head. She tells him after a moment, “He’s trying to forget anything ever happened, you know.”

“Believe me, I spent all night trying to forget as well.”

Allison has the impression that was supposed to sound like some sort of haughty insult to Stiles, but it does anything but that. She chuckles. Jackson glares.

“So you couldn’t sleep, huh?” she says, more as an afterthought, but Jackson’s reaction makes her smile widen. She rubs her hands together to keep them from getting cold. “I know how you feel.”

Jackson gives her a puzzled look. She amends, “Lydia.”

“Right,” he says, nodding. “Has that gone anywhere?”

Allison wets her lips, remembering how warm Lydia had felt on her, against her, around her. She glances at Jackson, laughing, and he follows her cue.

“You could say so.” 

“Good,” Jackson tells her, hiding his hands inside the pockets in his leather jacket.

Allison frowns, watching him. She can’t quite put her finger on what it is about his demeanor at that moment, but something’s amiss. She can’t tell if it’s the circles around his eyes or the lack of an attitude, but she could probably do something to help this side of him, instead of indulging in his daily dose of assholery.

“I like you better when you’re sleep deprived,” she announces, already expecting the glare that comes her way. “I think I can help you.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve playing boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“That was your idea,” Allison says, punching him on the shoulder. “A stupid idea.”

Jackson spurts out a weak laugh. “I know.”

Allison nods. “Good.”

***

Stiles is grabbing his car keys in the morning, backpack already slung over one shoulder, when Allison bumps into him and snatches it from his hand. She shoves it inside her bag, giving him a look that’s borderline manic, and says, “No way. I’m driving you.”

He narrows his eyes at her in the hopes it’ll make her waver. It doesn’t, and she takes him by the arm and shoves him inside her car instead. She locks the doors before he can run.

“I have practice after class,” he says, again trying to dissuade her without success. 

“You do?” She raises her eyebrows at him, nodding. “Good, I’ll pick you up after.”

Oh, shit. 

She’s going to do something to him. She’s definitely going to do something to him.

Stiles slumps down in the passenger seat, not to completely avoid Allison’s restless glances at him, but to evade them often enough for it to be breathable inside the tiny, tiny space they are in. The longer and more awkward her glances are, the tinier her car becomes and less air Stiles can suck into his lungs.

“Al, I can’t breathe,” he announces, pulling at the collar of his t-shirt. “Al.”

As the window slides down, Stiles takes one long breath and counts back from ten. Jumping out of a moving car is not that bad an idea, if he really thinks about it.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Stiles locks his eyes with Allison’s threatening gaze. He swallows.

“I wasn’t thinking about it,” Stiles says. “At least not that seriously.”

Allison rolls her eyes at him. Stiles barely has time to breathe again before they’re pulling up at the school parking lot and she’s dragging him by the sleeve of his hoodie past the double doors and into the hallway. Stiles almost trips on his own feet as she pushes him down the end of the hall, ushering him to go faster.

“Go _where_? I don’t know where I’m supposed to go, Al!”

“Just keep walking,” Allison tells him, looking over her shoulder and back at him. “Coach’s office. Go.”

Stiles adjusts the strap of his backpack on his shoulder and picks up his speed despite himself. “Jesus Christ, fine. Can you just tell me what this is about?”

“No. Walk.”

“Al, what the—?” Stiles’ words die in throat as Allison pushes him inside Coach’s office and right into Jackson. He pulls away as fast he can, falling back against her.

Allison grabs him by the shoulders and says, “My work here is done. Good luck!”

The sound of the door shutting behind Stiles rattles him to the core. He has to lean against something and close his eyes until the ground under his feet evens out again.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, opening his eyes to find Jackson leaning against Coach’s desk, arms crossed over his chest. Stiles rubs at the side of his neck and straightens himself up, avoiding Jackson’s eyes. “I don’t know what your problem is, but—”

“I just wanna talk, Argent.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Yeah, maybe because you blacked the fuck out and couldn’t even—”

Stiles doesn’t know what drives him to it—anger, embarrassment, or a combination of both, but he’s pretty fucking satisfied when his fist connects to Jackson’s jaw, sending Jackson stumbling back against the desk. This probably isn’t what Allison had in mind (or maybe it is, judging by how her meetings with Lydia usually go) when she came up with this plan of getting him and Jackson alone in the same room after what happened, but he can’t see past the boiling anger in his gut.

He hits Jackson again, this time knocking Jackson over the desk. A few pens, pencils and other paraphernalia topple to the floor as Jackson scrambles back up, holding the side of his face with a hand.

“Stay the hell away from me,” Stiles says, pointing a finger at Jackson. 

He swallows down the guilt at the sight of blood dribbling from the corner of Jackson’s mouth. Jackson wipes at it with the back of a hand, but when it doesn’t come out completely, his tongue sneaks out to lick at it. It’s weird, the sudden urge Stiles has to turn away and stare at it at the same time, but he chooses the former, setting his jaw as he averts his eyes.

He wipes at his face with a hand, shaking his head to clear his mind, and says, “Look, I’m sorry, man. I just—I have a lot of crap going on in my life right now and you’re just very a small part of it.”

There’s a minute of silence, one long enough for Stiles to lean against the wall opposite Jackson and for their eyes to meet in one of those strange, clear moments that are gone in a heartbeat.

“Well, _Argent_ ,” Jackson says, breaking the silence. He leaves his spot on the desk, takes a few careful steps in Stiles direction. Stiles doesn’t see a valid reason to stop him, not when his heartbeat picks up and Jackson invades his personal space. Jackson raises his eyebrows and mutters, leaning in close enough that Stiles can almost feel Jackson’s mouth on him, “Your crap has officially infiltrated my life. Now I have to do something about it.”

Stiles closes the distance between them before Jackson can. It’s an intentional move, but his stomach drops a little to do it. It’s clear to him that things can and probably will spiral out of control after this. It’ll turn into a chase, much like Lydia and Allison’s relationship (if you can call it that), and he won’t be prepared to deal with that. 

In this moment, he’s too far gone to care.

“Stop thinking so loud.”

Despite the commanding tone, Stiles smiles against Jackson’s mouth, his hands closing around the front of Jackson’s jacket and pulling their bodies closer together until Stiles has no more breathing space. 

Breathing, Stiles decides as Jackson’s lips press and slide against his, is overrated.

***

Hiding into a hole seems like the only sensible option as Stiles wanders into the classroom twenty minutes late and everyone’s eyes instinctively snap in his direction.

“Sorry,” he mutters, keeping his head down and glaring at Allison as he makes his way to an empty seat.

Allison has this little smirk splattered on her face, like she just won the Evil Twin Award of the year, and it makes Stiles want to either congratulate her or never talk to her again. Probably both, and in that order. It’s not as though he didn’t just have the most amazing make-out session of his entire life, because _damn_ , he did, and he was sober, but the one detail that ruins it almost entirely is _whom_ he had it with.

Jackson is not bad looking, nor is he a bad kisser. In fact, Stiles is pretty sure that, if he disregards Jackson’s personality altogether, Jackson might actually be the best masturbation material he’s ever had, but still. This guy just left him hanging in the Coach’s office, of all places, with a _very_ conspicuous erection and not a single apology or explanation. 

Stiles doesn’t ask for much—he’s in high school, what’s he supposed to expect?—when it comes to whatever it is that’s going on between them, but he’d happily continue doing this if he at least got a decent booty call instead of the worst case of mixed signals he’s ever experienced—and that’s coming from someone who’s had to share a good portion of his life with Lydia.

“Laisse-moi te donner un conseil, Monsier Argent.[1]”

There’s an abrupt pause in Stiles’ train of thought. He blinks at Ms. Morrell twice and manages to spurt a semi-coherent string of words that are definitely not French. Allison chuckles behind him. 

“Prête attention à la classe.[2]”

Stiles tries again, “Désolé?[3]”

Morrell stares at him for a moment, scrutinizing him with those soulless eyes that never fail to make him squirm. She gives him the barest of smiles. “Are you asking, Stiles?”

Stiles scratches his right temple, swallowing. “Non[4],” he tells her, and Morrell’s smile widens for an imperceptible second. “Je suis désolé[5].”

She nods at him and moves on to another student, seemingly satisfied. Stiles waits until she’s far enough that she won’t hear him and sighs, slumping down in his seat. Allison pokes him on the shoulder.

“You okay?” 

He takes a quick look over his shoulder and nods, says, “I’m fine.”

She doesn’t ask any more questions. Stiles knows she doesn’t need to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French to English translations (thanks Google!):
> 
> 1 - _Let me give some advice, Mr. Argent._  
>  2 - _Pay attention to class._  
>  3 - _Sorry?_  
>  4, 5 - _No, I'm sorry._


	13. too late, too deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here comes a short, but inspired chapter 13! It's much like the first few chapters, length-wise, but I'm feeling very happy with how it turned out. There's a little bit of both Stiles/Jackson and Lydia/Allison, and let's just say that Stiles is not happy with Jackson.
> 
> This is relationship-focused, with a cameo by Scott McCall and some wet/dangerous fooling around by our beloved couples. Next one will be Stackson-centered, with a bit of Allydia and Papa Argent on the side, whipped cream, and a cherry on top! So, think of this one as a foundation for some Stackson goodness.
> 
> Thank you for everything and enjoy the quickie. Feedback is always welcome.

Stiles, with much effort and maybe a little bribing, manages to get Finstock to let him join in on practice. Not that Finstock ever even had a choice in the matter, because Stiles was going to play even if he ended up in the hospital again, but Stiles wanted to give him at least the illusion of choice. To be honest, it worked better than Stiles had thought.

He’s pretty sure Finstock is laughing on the inside, though, seeing as Stiles can barely keep up with everyone else without feeling like he might spit out his stomach. Danny comes to check on him more times than is needed, which leaves Stiles feeling like a chubby twelve-year-old who can’t run laps in P.E. and is always the last one to be picked into a team.

“How’re you feeling, man?” Scott stops by him while they’re running their tenth lap (Stiles’ sixth), dropping a hand on Stiles’ back as Stiles bends over to regain his breath.

“Me?” Stiles takes a deep breath, raising a finger. “Not awesome, I’ll tell you that.”

“You don’t need to go the hospital, do you?”

Stiles snaps his neck up, glaring. “Do I _look_ like I need to go to the hospital, Scott?”

The pause and the awkward smile on Scott’s face should be enough of an answer, but Scott feels the need to voice his thoughts, “Kinda, yeah.”

Stiles closes his eyes and counts to ten. Alright, he can do this. He can definitely do this.

“Keep moving, McCall, Argent!”

Straightening his back, Stiles goes back to jogging with Scott close by for a couple of minutes before he outruns Stiles again. Stiles tries harder, forcing his body to run through the tiredness, but Scott and everyone else just seem to be getting farther and farther. He focuses on them as he picks up his pace, but something’s amiss.

Jackson was just there a second ago, but now—

“Easy, Argent, or you’ll end up hurting yourself.”

Oh, of course _that’s_ where he is. Stiles glances over his shoulder to find Jackson catching up to him. 

“Don’t worry. You sure took care of that last time,” Stiles throws back, and he can see a muscle in Jackson’s jaw pop as Jackson clenches his teeth. 

“I already apologized for that.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did,” Jackson argues, a smirk breaking on his face, “but maybe you were too much of a dumbass to realize it.”

“That thing with your mouth?” Stiles says, gesturing between him and Jackson. “Yeah, not cutting it, buddy. You should probably apologize like a real person.”

Jackson chuckles at him. “Are you kidding me, Argent? That was more than enough.”

“Trust me, dude. It was not _nearly_ enough.”

Stiles wants to laugh, he does, but he manages to keep it in for the sake Jackson’s face, which is priceless. He should probably take a picture and frame it, and then give it as present to Jackson on Jackson’s birthday.

Not surprisingly, Jackson’s response is nothing more than a mumbled, “Shut up, Argent.”

***

Allison’s reflexes almost make her choke Lydia at the library as she’s reading up on French werewolf mythology and a hand sneaks up her shoulder. She apologizes, drawing her hand back as quickly as it went out.

“Well,” Lydia coughs up. “ _That_ certainly hurt.”

Allison glances down at her feet and then back at Lydia, trying to come up with a sensible response. “I’m so, so sorry—”

“I think,” Lydia interrupts her, wrapping her fingers around Allison’s wrist when Allison’s hand comes up soothe the skin on Lydia’s neck, “we should try that sometime.”

Allison’s eyebrows shoot up on their own volition and she chuckles, giving Lydia’s neck a little squeeze before letting go. She shakes her head, making herself comfortable in her seat again. Lydia pulls up a chair beside her.

“Interesting read you’ve got going on there,” Lydia tells her, gesturing at the book with a finger.

Allison nods, despite knowing Lydia in only pulling her hair. “I’m just trying to catch up with family history.”

“Oh, right. The French hunters. Stiles mentioned it.” Lydia skims over the page Allison had stopped on. “L'attaque est la meilleure défence.”

“Attack is the best form of defense,” Allison translates, which she supposes goes in vain, given that Lydia seems to be aware of the meaning.

Lydia smirks, rubbing her neck. “You sure got that covered.”

Allison glances around to make sure no one actually saw the incident, and clears her throat. “I thought you were heading home.”

“I was, but then I saw your car in the parking lot.”

“Thoughtful."

Lydia tips her head to the side. “Well, aren’t I always?”

Allison snorts, closing the book. “No,” she says, simple and to the point, and it seems to sprout some sort of corrupt idea in Lydia’s head. Allison nudges her under the table, pointing a warning finger at her. “Definitely no. Not here.”

“What?” Lydia feigns innocence. “I didn’t say anything.”

“To quote my brother, your face did.”

“That’s not the quote.”

Allison tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and crosses her arms. “I know, but there’s nothing stupid about your face.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing stupid about me at all,” Lydia says through a smile. “And where _is_ Stiles, by the way?”

“Practice,” Allison says, wondering how it’s going. Stiles has probably kicked Jackson in the nuts by now, or worse, judging by the state Stiles was in after their little rendezvous at Coach’s office. She amends, after a while, chuckling, “Practice… with Jackson. They should be done by now.”

Lydia’s eyes widen. “They’re actually talking to each other?”

“Not exactly.”

“And ’not exactly’ accounts for what, exactly?”

“You know what,” Allison replies, scratching her neck. “I might have helped?”

Lydia smiles, shaking her head. “And you say I’m the evil one in this relationship.”

Allison shrugs one shoulder, biting down onto her lower lip. “You really are, though.”

Lydia glances over behind her, as if to check if they have any spectators. She rises from her seat and goes to the door, locking it. Allison can’t say she’s surprised at all. She doesn’t even think about protesting as Lydia makes her way back and Allison finds her lap full of Lydia.

“I really am,” Lydia whispers against Allison’s mouth, sinking her teeth onto Allison’s bottom lip.

“There are cameras in here, Lydia.”

Lydia smirks, her fingers slowly unbuttoning Allison’s blouse. “Hm,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “No, there aren’t.”

Allison glances at the cameras to find that, unsurprisingly, they’ve been shut down. She smiles, letting Lydia slide her blouse down her shoulders. 

Leave it to Lydia to always think one step ahead.

***

Angry wall sex was not something Stiles had anticipated, but Jackson has this special way of getting under Stiles’ skin that only he can master, and Stiles can’t exactly complain.

He realizes that it might not be the healthiest of relationships, and might even rival Allison and Lydia’s, but who in their right mind would pass up an opportunity to grab Jackson by the hair and slam him up against the nearest wall, while leaving a pretty clear message on his neck? No one, Stiles assumes, and especially not him.

He’s got to give it to Jackson; the guy might not be the best of people, but goddammit if he doesn’t taste and feel good under Stiles’ mouth. Stiles sure as hell hopes that the showers are muffling out Jackson’s groans as Stiles’ teeth dip into the skin just below his ear, or Stiles’ gasping as he jostles Jackson around.

Jackson releases a particularly obscene moan against Stiles’ mouth as Stiles pushes him up on the wet tiles. Stiles tightens his grip on Jackson’s hip, thrusting forward until he can feel them slide against each other, and Jackson’s laugh breaks them apart. Stiles is torn between giving Jackson the most painful orgasm in the history of ever and shutting him up with a punch. Instead, his brain decides that it might more productive if he reaches down to wrap his hand around the both of them, and he does exactly that.

“Don’t get attached or anything, Argent. I don’t do feelings,” Jackson says, thrusting up in Stiles’ fist.

“Do you at least do first names, Whittemore?” Stiles throws back, licking his way up from Jackson’s neck to his ear. “Because you’re really killing the mood here.”

Jackson goes quiet for a good five minutes before Stiles gets a response, between a breath and another as they come in Stiles’ hand. Jackson drops his head to Stiles’ shoulder, chuckling.

“I can do first names.”

***

Stiles has forgotten what it’s like to feel awkward as the four of them meet at the parking lot, a couple of hours after they were supposed to be going home. His brain doesn’t even have the strength to make him feel mortified when Lydia pokes fun at him with her usual deductive powers.

“Have a good one, did you?” she says, smirking. She gives him and Jackson a good once-over, her smirk growing into a smile when Stiles stares at her in what he supposes is a confused expression. He can’t be sure when he can barely feel his facial muscles. “Some things I just infer, but you, Stiles, you look freshly—”

“Alright, Lydia, I think that’s enough,” Allison chimes in, hand flying over Lydia’s mouth.

Stiles has to blink twice at them before shaking his head and walking out to Allison’s car. He takes a quick look over his shoulder to catch Jackson’s gaze, and nods his goodbye. Jackson reciprocates just as Stiles was expecting: with the smallest hint of a smile, which is more of a smirk, and nothing else.

Glancing at Lydia and Allison really makes him question if his relationship is not more bizarre than he assumed, given that Allison receives a heated kiss from Lydia while he gets a smug little smirk and a cold shoulder from Jackson.

Either Allison is very skilled with her mouth and fingers, which is not something he’s willing to wonder about, or Stiles simply sucks at choosing his enemies with benefits.

He’s ninety-percent sure it’s the latter.


	14. call me on my way down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I know, I'm sorry. Writing is sucking the life out of me. I have so many ideas, for so many fandoms, that it's getting a bit overwhelming. 
> 
> It's here, though, and it's ending. Phew! Stiles and Jackson are finally in a place they can both be happy, and I'm sure Allison and Lydia had found that place already. I meant to sneak a little bit more of Allydia in here, but I felt that Stackson needed the screen time. It is my OTP, after all. :-)
> 
> I caught as many mistakes as I could, but there'll probably be a few others scattered around. I apologize for that. Hopefully there's nothing too bad.
> 
> Enjoy and feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated.

Allison tries to discuss Stiles and Jackson’s relationship during dinner. He evades the questions by shoving food into his mouth, but that only gets him so far, which is until he’s finished eating and there are no other evasion methods that he can stick to. That is, other than one, which is to flee to his room as fast as he can and pretend he’s dead.

He’s only slightly thankful for his dad not being there. On one hand, he doesn’t have to dodge any more questions than he already has, but on the other, Allison is free to use whatever kind of information-extracting technique she deems fit. Stiles is familiar enough with most of them to know that the least unpleasant one involves enough psychological terrorism to ruin his entire week (and possibly scar him for life).

Stiles doesn’t move a muscle as he sees the shadow of Allison’s feet stop by his door. Her lock-picking skills aren’t as reputable at his, but she can take down that door with one kick if she wants, and Stiles is glad that she seems not to.

He can almost hear the smile in her voice as she says, “Good night, Stiles,” and then her shadow disappears.

Stiles swallows the knot in his throat and slumps against his desk chair with a wobbly sigh.

***

Allison might be trying to respect Stiles’ space and lack of will to have a decent discussion about Jackson, but that doesn’t keep her from coming up with ways to make him indirectly face his feelings.

And that’s why she, at an ungodly hour of the morning, wakes up, finds a presentable workout outfit, and waits for Stiles in the kitchen. He does a double take as he sleepily passes through her and goes for the fridge, ten minutes later, and she gives him a smile. The moment realization dawns on him is clearer than day; Allison has to smack her lips shut to keep from laughing.

“Please tell me you’re not kidnapping me again,” Stiles begs, running a hand through his mussed hair. “I’m barely awake, Al.”

Allison makes a small sound in her chest, giving him her best dimple-adorned smile. “Define kidnapping.”

Stiles offers her a sigh. Poking his head inside the fridge, he says, “Fine, I’m not even going to bother.” He conjures up a box of grapes Allison didn’t even know existed and amends, “Just _please_ let my brain wake up first.”

She gives him an uncommitted shrug, taking a grape when he offers her, and feigns innocence. Stiles isn’t having any of it, but he’ll go with it for the sake of his still half-asleep brain, she knows, and she’s grateful for not having to disclose any details of her plan.

“I just thought we could go for a run together,” she tells him. He flicks a grape at her; she catches it with her teeth and munches down on it. “You look like you need the company.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at her, biting down onto a handful of grapes in the meanwhile, and Allison fidgets under his scrutiny. She’s a little rusty at this whole matchmaking thing, to be honest; that’s more Lydia’s forte than hers.

“I promise there’ll be no…” Allison trails off, gesturing with a hand, “ _kidnapping_ you against your will.”

Stiles blinks at her, raising his eyebrows. “As opposed to kidnapping me with my consent?”

Her face must be a hybrid between deer-caught-in-headlights and Scott-McCall-doesn’t-get-your-joke, which are basically the same thing, judging by Stiles’ expression. 

She clears her throat. “Yes?”

Saved by the doorbell before Stiles can counter-argument, Allison hops out of her stool and makes her way to the door. Stiles’ _goddammit, Al_ resonates from the kitchen and into the foyer as she opens the door for Lydia, who comes in shooting her a disapproving look.

“Good morning, Stiles,” Lydia says, chipper, waltzing into the kitchen with Allison behind her. She grabs Stiles’ chin when he stares at her, lifting two incredulous eyebrows, and places a peck on his lips. Both Stiles and Allison choke. Lydia feigns ignorance, “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” Stiles says after he recomposes himself, but there’s still a faint buzzing in his ears. “My twin sister’s girlfriend and best friend just casually kissed me. You know, the usual.”

Lydia scoffs, throwing a grape into her mouth. “Please, Stiles. You call _that_ a kiss? 

“Yes,” Stiles tells her, guarding the grapes when she goes for another one. “Your lips were on my lips. I’d call that a kiss.”

Allison gives Lydia a weak smile when Lydia turns to her for solace. Lydia purses her lips, placing her hands on her waist. 

“No wonder Jackson’s playing hard to catch,” she says, and leaves it hanging in the air as she makes a beeline for the fridge. 

Allison catches her by the jacket before she can open it. “You can eat after the run, or we’re going to be late.”

“Late for what?” Stiles perks up. “Al, what’s going on?”

Lydia lifts a finger in his direction. “I’m wearing _nylon_ for you,” she warns him. “Be patient.”

Allison doesn’t bother answering as well, choosing to let Stiles earn his response twenty minutes later when they’re making a sharp turn in one of the tracks by the woods and Jackson comes crashing into his chest, sending them both skidding to the ground. Stiles releases an _oof!_ as he reaches out to grab the front of Jackson’s t-shirt and falls on his back, Jackson half-sprawled on top of him.

“Right on time,” Lydia says and pats Jackson on the back as she and Allison go around them in a light jog.

As she passes them, Allison glances behind her shoulder to catch a glimpse of Stiles’ glare. She gives him an apologetic smile as Lydia pulls her away by the hand, says, “I’m sorry!” and hopes for the best.

***

Stiles loves his sister, he does; except when he absolutely doesn’t, and that would be right now.

He pushes Jackson away from him and Jackson rolls to the side, falling over dry leaves and dirt as his back hits the ground. Stiles gives him the coldest stare he can manage, but Jackson barely even acknowledges him. Stiles wishes it didn’t, but it bothers him somehow, and he scrambles to his feet wishing to God that a hole would open up and swallow him entirely. 

“Are we going to keep meeting like this?” Jackson mumbles, after a moment, and Stiles almost doesn’t catch it. “Because I’d rather punch myself in the face.”

Stiles clears his throat, trying to get rid of the knot wedged in there, and pointedly ignores Jackson’s remark. “Like what?” he asks as he rises from the ground and slaps dirt away from his clothes.

He feels Jackson’s sigh more than he hears it, warm against his neck as Jackson whispers, “Like this.” 

Stiles flinches, taking a step away from Jackson¬—when the hell did he get so close?—and takes an unstable breath. Jackson’s staring at him, eyebrows raised as if to say _well?_ and Stiles doesn’t know what to do. He’s dealt with enough shit in his life to know that life’s, well, shitty, but the amount of shit he’s gone through in the last year has been overwhelming. He’s pretty sure his brain only has about half of its usual capacity.

He opens his mouth to speak before he can think of what to say, but Jackson cuts him short with an out-of-breath, “Let me save you some time,” and crashes his mouth onto Stiles’.

Stiles doesn’t know why it keeps happening, but Jackson pressing him up against hard surfaces and kissing him has a pretty high rate of recurrence. 

It doesn’t bother him as much as it should, and it keeps happening. 

There’s usually a little push from Allison that lands him into Finstock’s office and right in the middle of Jackson’s chest—or Lydia dragging him to double dates that would _never_ happen in an ideal world, or both Allison and Lydia guarding the locker room door with the excuse of a leak while Jackson (with his hands down Stiles’ pants and mouth latched onto Stiles’ neck) swears it will never happen again.

Stiles doesn’t complain. Not much and not when either his or Jackson’s mouth is otherwise occupied, but he realizes their relationship is far from idyllic. More often than not, it all starts with a fight and ends up with a whole lot of bruises and a world-shattering orgasm. In some other, rarer times, it starts with the mutual, although halfhearted, realization that it’s a win-win situation.

“Okay, now that we’re done,” Stiles says in a short breath, sweat running down his neck as he throws his head back against the locker room wall, Jackson kneeling in front of him. “Do you want to remind me again of how you don’t do feelings?”

Jackson picks himself up, reaching beside Stiles’ shoulder to turn on the shower. “I don’t give a fuck, Stiles.”

“Really?” Stiles chuckles, gesturing at his current below-the-waist state with a hand. “’Cause I’m pretty sure you just did.”

Stiles is prepared to duck a punch or two, but Jackson doesn’t move a muscle. He shakes his head instead; stepping under the spray of water, his hands on both sides of Stiles’ head, he says, “Do you want a pat on the back for that clever little joke?”

Stiles draws back against the wet-cool tiles to give himself enough space to breathe and ignores the flip his stomach makes at Jackson’s remark. 

He tries to recover with another joke, “I’m just saying, man. This is like the fifth time we do this. I wouldn’t want you to get attached or—” but he doesn’t get to finish before Jackson is walking out on him.

***

Between helping Lydia out with her and Allison’s nightly escapades and trying to cover up his own, Stiles has grown more attached to her than ever before. He didn’t think it was possible, but if even his dad is giving him weird looks whenever Lydia is around (something that never, ever happened before, and Lydia’s been around since they were just two little bug-chasing brats), then their relationship has probably stepped over a few boundaries he wasn’t aware of.

His dad knocks on his bedroom door one afternoon, just as Lydia has her head resting on Stiles’ lap with Stiles’ hand lost in her hair, and Stiles tells him to come in. He gives them a curious look, eyebrows raised as his eyes dart back and forth between Stiles and Lydia.

“Is this a good time?” he asks. “Should I come back later?”

Stiles takes one look at Lydia’s state—wild hair, smudged lipstick, and an old, loose shirt from the back of Stiles’ closet thrown over her shoulders, barely covering up her naked legs—and fumbles with Lydia’s head until she’s sat upright and as far away from his lap as possible without falling out the bed.

“N—no, no,” Stiles says, shaking his head. “I mean, yes. Now’s fine. Now’s totally, completely fine.”

He exchanges a look with Lydia, who silently reprimands him, and turns back to his dad. His dad takes another look between them before nodding toward the hallway, ushering Stiles outside.

Stiles stumbles out of his bed and into the hall, softly closing the door behind him. “Yeah?”

His dad clears his throat, crossing his arms across his chest. “I saw your sister’s car. In someone’s driveway,” he tells Stiles, as if Stiles could magically figure out what he’s getting at. “There was a Porsche next to it.”

“Oh,” is the most constructive answer Stiles can offer. His brain takes a moment to translate that into _Jackson’s driveway_.

“I need you to be honest with me, Stiles.” Stiles nods. “Is she seeing that… _kid_ again?”

Something tells him that _"Oh, no dad. She was just fake-seeing him for a while so she could make Lydia—her girlfriend, who I did not have sex with, by the way—jealous and finally get into her pants. Actually, I’m the one seeing him. Or not seeing him. I’m just kind of screwing him—usually against walls and in very uncomfortable and dangerous places. Allison went there to kick his ass into oblivion for ignoring me for an entire week after he sucked me off in the locker room after practice. After she fooled around with her girlfriend and left her half-naked and alone with me, by the way. Don’t ask me to elaborate, because I can’t. Don’t worry, though, everything’s fine,"_ is not the most thought-out answer to that question. Or it may be too thought-out.

In the end, he sticks to an unhelpful, “No?”

His dad stares down at him for a moment, as if waiting for him to change his response, and when Stiles doesn’t, he simply gives out a sigh and nods.

“And Lydia?”

“Lydia?” Stiles echoes, scratching the back of his head. “Lydia’s great. She’s great.”

His dad gives him a small, knowing smile and squeezes Stiles’ shoulder. Hard. “Just remember: I don’t expect to be a grandfather until I’m at least fifty.”

Stiles snorts. “Trust me, dad, that will not be a problem,” he says.

***

Allison doesn’t wait for Jackson to invite her in before stepping past him and into his living room, and she doesn’t need to turn around to know he’s glaring at her either.

“You’re not talking to him,” she says, turning to face him.

Jackson’s eyes soften almost imperceptibly, the tense line of his shoulders wilting as he bows his head, averting his gaze. Allison raises her eyebrows, purses her lips, waiting for an answer that she know might not come.

“I told you,” Jackson says, and he sounds as overindulgent as Lydia, “he’s ruining my life. He’s ruining _me_.”

Allison chews on the inside of her cheek for a second. “Ruining as in making you feel something for a change?”

“Hey, I have feelings,” Jackson argues, frowning. He sounds as wounded as he looks, but his voice has a piercing edge to it. He admits, “Like anger. For certain people. Like your brother.”

Allison lowers herself on one of the couches, fishing a dagger from her bag without Jackson seeing. She plunges it into the seat next to her just as he’s about to open his mouth to speak, the sound of leather being slashed filling the space between them.

“Jackson,” she says with a toothy smile, a little too sweetly to be truthful. “I say we do this the easy way.”

Silence stretches in the air. Allison’s smile widens and Jackson’s mouth presses into a straight line.

She angles her head to the right, taking the dagger out of Jackson’s expensive couch, and asks, “Don’t you agree?”

***

Stiles was expecting a call, maybe an unenthusiastic text from Jackson. Allison coming home with him in tow, the proud grin on her face contrasting with the dark circles on his, around his eyes, takes Stiles by surprise more than it does his dad (or Lydia, for that matter).

Stiles suddenly feels very much violated; was everyone expecting this but him?

“Just in time for dinner,” Stiles hears his dad say from the kitchen, followed by the sound of a heavy pan hitting marble. 

The air still vibrates with the sound after a moment. Stiles clears his throat, leaving his seat on the couch to walk to Allison’s, fingers enclosing her wrist as he leads her to a corner.

“Al?” he says, simply.

Allison glances over at Jackson, who’s standing by the door still, both hands tucked inside his pockets as he undergoes an eye battle with Stiles’ dad. Stiles’ gaze doesn’t move from Jackson as Allison takes his hand in hers, her cold, damp thumb stroking his knuckles.

“He said he’s sorry,” she tells him.

Stiles’ eyes snap back to her and he frowns as he catches a glimpse of a blade inside her messenger bag. “He said it or did you coax it out of him?”

“He didn’t need much persuasion,” Allison offers, as if to comfort him. Stiles glances at Jackson again and their eyes meet and lock for a second before Allison steals Stiles’ attention again. “It’s going to be fine, Stiles. Trust me.”

Stiles gives her a weak snort, but nods his agreement and presses a kiss to her forehead. 

“Let’s eat,” he says in a soft voice, making his way to the dinner table, where his dad is arranging the dishes.

Allison follows him close by, with Lydia whispering something to Jackson a few feet behind. Lydia takes the seat next to him, Allison and Jackson sitting opposite them. They all exchange a short look.

Allison nudges Stiles’ foot under the table as their dad starts circling them, stopping behind Jackson to dig his fingers into the muscles on Jackson’s shoulders. Jackson closes his eyes, letting out an audible gulp.

“Jackson, is it?”

Jackson’s eyes flutter open, meeting Stiles’. Stiles closes his hands into fists and breathes in slowly, Allison’s foot still unrelenting against his.

“Yes, sir,” Jackson says, but the _sir_ comes out strangled, as if he were talking through his teeth.

“You must be hungry,” Stiles’ dad says. He releases his grip on Jackson, taking Jackson’s plate in his hand instead. “Mashed potatoes?”

There isn’t time for an answer before a spoonful of purée hits the plate with an angry _splat!_. Stiles has to stifle a laugh despite the circumstances; leave it to his dad to be aggressively helpful. 

Jackson has the biggest plate of them all when Stiles’ dad is done, having to eat through a small mountain of food before he’s finished. Stiles is slightly amused by Jackson’s resolve, while his dad seems to be stuck between thrilled and disturbed.

“So,” his dad pipes up, pushing his empty plate aside. “How long have you,” he says, points at Allison and Jackson, and then at Stiles and Lydia, “and you, been dating?”

Stiles chokes on his water, spitting some of it on the table. He glances at Lydia to see the corners of her mouth curving upward, rosy lips sticking out, and then her hand smacks down hard onto his left thigh; it prickles as she strokes it.

“Not long, Mr. Argent,” she says, amusement plastered on her face. She tilts her head to the side, placing a sloppy kiss to a spot on the underside of Stiles’ jawline. “Not long at all.”

Stiles catches a brief exchange between her and Allison and goes along with it. He throws an arm around Lydia’s smooth shoulders, still covered in his old t-shirt, and plants a kiss on her hair. It smells of coconut and sweat, with a hint of Allison’s perfume. 

“You?” His dad redirects the question to Jackson, pointing at him with a fork.

Allison smiles, turning her body in a way that fits Jackson’s chest (a little uncomfortably, it seems, if Jackson’s flash of a grimace is anything to go by), and nuzzles his neck with the back of her head. 

It appears to be answer enough for their dad, given the annoyed grunt that leaves his throat before he offers, “Anyone want dessert?”

***

It’s not unusual for Stiles to be dragged into impossibly awkward situations. That’s the story of his life. This, however—Lydia’s _got_ to be aiming for some kind of award.

He doesn’t mind, not entirely. He’s only human, and Lydia is warm and smooth alongside him; a persistent, but gentle presence pressed against his side as his dad seems to scrutinize their every move instead of watching the movie on TV. Stiles has the impression he’s—they’re—going through a test, and they’re failing it.

He fidgets in his seat, hand tightening around Lydia’s waist as he draws her closer to him and whispers in her ear, “I don’t think we’re doing this right.”

Lydia’s eyes flip to his dad and then back at him, and she makes a high-pitched noise in her chest.

“Oh, we’re doing this right,” she says, nodding. She runs her index finger up along her neck. Through a cough, she amends, “Allison, on the other hand.”

Stiles takes a moment to watch Jackson and Allison. They’re pressed up together alright, except where Lydia is pliant and calm against Stiles, Allison is all gritted muscles and hard posture against Jackson. Her knuckles are white where she grips Jackson’s knee, as if she were holding on to keep steady. 

Jackson’s expression also doesn’t help; his eyes rest upon Lydia, somewhere in the vicinity where Stiles’ fingers dip into her ribs, caressing the spot. If it’s jealousy or something else, Stiles doesn’t know.

Lydia smirks a little too knowingly for Stiles’ tastes, snuggling closer to him. “Maybe we should give them a little incentive,” she says, her mouth brushing up against Stiles’ ear as she speaks. 

Stiles shivers and is about to respond when a ringtone cuts through the air. He flinches back against the couch and his eyes trail to his dad, who grabs the remote to pause the movie and take the call. 

“Yeah,” he says into his cell, nods. His eyes soften. “I’ll be right there.”

Stiles watches him as he rises from his seat, tucking the phone back into his jacket.

“I need to go. It’s your mom’s sister.”

Stiles nods, letting out a breath. His dad nods back, giving a small nod toward Jackson as well, and Stiles is sure he sees Jackson’s shoulders sag a little. 

“Aunt Rachel? Is she alright?” Allison asks, slipping out of Jackson’s grasp.

“She’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Their dad gives Allison, and then Stiles, a quick kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Behave.”

He doesn’t take a duffel bag, a change of clothes—nothing. He simply disappears out the door with only the clothes on his back and one last look at them. Stiles stays in place until he hears the car engine start outside, and then tries to get up without luck. 

“I don’t think so,” Lydia tells him, pulling him back by the arm. Stiles falls to the couch with a muffled thud, a frown tugging at his forehead. 

Allison gives him a puzzled look when he glances at her, seemingly unaware of Lydia’s intentions. That can’t be good, Stiles thinks as his eyes meet Jackson’s, which are just as confused.

“Lydia—” Stiles begins, but loses his breath as soon as Lydia’s mouth connects to his.

He doesn’t have much time to think. Lydia’s lips are warm and plump, moving slowly and with deliberation. It’s different, this time. Different from all those years ago—it’s not hesitant or unexperienced; it’s not pure. 

This is Lydia climbing on top of him, swinging one leg over his lap until her thighs are framing him, her hands cupping the sides of his face. Stiles responds to the kiss, but doesn’t close his eyes. Instead, he glances over Lydia’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of Allison and Jackson on the adjacent couch, Allison’s hand rubbing circles on Jackson’s knee.

Stiles breathes out against Lydia’s mouth as he notices the clouded haze in Jackson’s eyes, watching them. Stiles can’t bring himself to look away. He watches, stares at Jackson as Jackson slips a hand behind Allison’s neck, flipping them down onto the couch and lowering himself on top of her until all Stiles can see is Jackson’s back. 

A long, lazy moan echoes in the living room and Stiles can’t tell who it’s from. Could’ve been his, or Jackson’s, or both of theirs in unison, but thinking proves itself to be too much of a task. Stiles allows his eyes to flutter shut then, his fingers splaying out along Lydia’s back, tangling amidst the cotton of the t-shirt she’s wearing and the tips of her hair. 

Lydia pulls apart after a moment, nudging Stiles’ nose with hers. Her breath is hot and humid on his skin, coming out in short bursts as her tongue travels across her upper lip. A whimper escapes Stiles’ chest. He can’t help himself.

“That worked well,” Lydia says, twisting her neck to glance at the other couch. She gives Stiles a pleased smile, sliding away from his lap and back into her seat when he fidgets under her weight. 

Stiles nods, breathing through his mouth. He watches, with Lydia’s hand covering his, as Jackson’s hands cups the undersides of Allison’s thighs, drawing them to him until he’s got them wrapped around his waist. Allison makes a surprised sound when Jackson pulls at her, taking her with him as he straightens his back, and she clutches at the front of his jacket not to lose balance.

By the time Jackson finally breaks apart from her, his lips are raw. It makes Stiles want to coax them into his mouth and smooth them over, and if the way Jackson runs his tongue over his bottom lip is anything to go by, he isn’t exactly opposed to the idea.

Stiles gives Lydia a quick look, not knowing what to expect. To be honest, he doesn’t want to; he’s blissfully ignorant the way it is. She flashes him a candid smile, nodding toward Jackson as if to say _go on_.

Stiles doesn’t think twice and Jackson meets him halfway. If Lydia’s kiss was measured and unhurried, Jackson’s is anything but; it’s exactly what Stiles needs. He gives Jackson permission the moment Jackson’s tongue asks for it, slick and hot against Stiles’.

Jackson’s arms come up to wrap around Stiles’ back, but Stiles isn’t having any of it—he wants to feel more of Jackson. He pushes at the front of Jackson’s jacket until he can slide it down Jackson’s shoulders, letting it fall to the hardwood floor as he tries to work on what’s underneath.

They pull apart when it becomes too much; Stiles with his t-shirt halfway up his torso, and Jackson with his button-down missing a few buttons. Stiles releases a breathy laugh, letting his forehead rest against Jackson’s shoulder before he remembers they’re not alone in the room.

“Oh, do go on,” Lydia says when Stiles glances at her, her voice rough. She gestures with a hand, bringing one side of her lower lip into her mouth. “I wouldn’t want to ruin such a good show.”

Stiles chuckles, looking down at his feet for a moment as he pulls his t-shirt back down, and then picks up his gaze. Allison shifts against Lydia and Stiles doesn’t know who’s more embarrassed—him or her. He opens his mouth before he thinks of what to say, but Lydia doesn’t give him a chance before she’s up on her feet, reaching into the liquor cabinet. 

“Here, this’ll help,” she says when she plummets back onto the couch. She passes the bottle along to Allison, who in turn passes it to Jackson without bothering to open it.

Jackson gazes at it for a moment. He gives Stiles a look and shrugs, sipping some of it. He nudges Stiles in the ribs with his elbow, passing the bottle to him, and Stiles raises his eyebrows.

“Really? You want to do this?” 

Jackson smirks, pressing his mouth to the side of Stiles’ neck. “I don’t know, do _you_?”

Stiles knows where Jackson’s getting at, he does. Jackson’s mouth on his skin is doing a pretty good job of showing it and Stiles’ body isn’t exactly complaining, but his sister is sitting right there.

“You didn’t seem worried before,” Lydia says, breaking Stiles out of his reverie. She gestures between them with a finger, conveniently keeping her gaze below their waists. “You know.”

Stiles shakes his head, pushing Jackson away so he can think. “I know. I know what you’re getting at. You don’t have to, you know, do that,” Stiles says. He covers the overall vicinity of his crotch when she smirks. 

Lydia gives him a halfhearted shrug, reaching for the bottle when Jackson offers. She takes a swig and passes it back. “Get on with it, Stiles.”

“Get on—?” Stiles stumbles back when Jackson lunges at him again. “Guys, seriously. I’m not—” Stiles takes a breath and holds it, trying to ignore the warmth of Jackson’s tongue against his neck. “I’m not doing this. Al, a little help here?” 

Allison raises her eyebrows. “Yeah, um. I don’t think—“

Stiles jumps away when Jackson’s hands start traveling south. “Yeah, no. I’m definitely not doing this. Not here,” Stiles announces, taking Jackson by the wrists. He gives them a little pull. “Can I talk to you?”

Jackson looks like he might bite Stiles’ head off for a moment, but when Stiles pulls at his wrists again and starts walking toward the stairs, there isn’t much he can do.

Between getting to his room and closing the door behind them, Stiles barely has time to think; Jackson presses up against him again, hands pulling at his shirt and tongue leaving a wet patch from Stiles’ neck to his ear.

“Jackson, stop,” he says, once, but Jackson doesn’t seem to take it into account. He takes a breath and presses both his hands to Jackson’s chest, pushing him away. “I said stop.”

Jackson lets out a groan that sounds more aroused than angry. “What?”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “Really, _what_? Are you kidding me? What the hell’s your problem?”

“ _My_ problem?” Jackson shakes his head with an ironic laugh that shouldn’t be tempting to Stiles, but is.

Stiles folds his arm over his chest, hating the way his body reacts to Jackson more than hating Jackson himself. He crosses his bedroom in a few long strides and settles on his bed, running a hand through the back of his head.

“I can’t do it like this, alright?” He looks up at Jackson, who’s still by the door. “I can’t keep fooling around with you whenever _you_ feel like it. That’s not how relationships work.”

“This isn’t—”

“Dude, shut up.” Stiles shakes his head. “I get it. You don’t do feelings. This isn’t a relationship, what-the-fuck-ever. The fact is that we _are_ doing this. We’ve been doing this for a while now, and I’m tired.”

Jackson seems like he might argue, but when his mouth opens, nothing happens. He stares at Stiles and Stiles stares back, waiting. Neither of them moves, except for the quick rise of their chests. Stiles lets his eyes wander over Jackson’s frame, and he forgets how to breathe for a second.

“Fine.”

Stiles eyes Jackson with caution. “Fine,” he echoes.

There’s defeat in Jackson’s gaze, but he doesn’t change his stance. Stiles thinks it’s to be expected; this is Jackson, after all. This entire thing was doomed to failure from the beginning.

“That’s all I have to say…” Stiles tells him and trails off, giving Jackson the option to remove himself to somewhere Stiles is not. Just in case.

Jackson seems to take the hint, but doesn’t move. Stiles takes a moment to adjust to the sudden change in atmosphere. It’s true that he hasn’t actually put any thought into dating Jackson, because it just sounds ridiculous in itself, but he’s not against the idea. He wants to try out the whole thing—stupid dates, dinner with the family, sleepovers and sex at ungodly hours of the morning, everything—and he wants it to be his choice as much as it is Jackson’s.

Something flickers in Jackson’s gaze and he gives Stiles a small, reserved smile. Stiles doesn’t think he’s ever seen that smile before, not from Jackson. 

“Good,” Jackson says, and starts unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. 

As it slides down Jackson’s shoulders, Stiles decides that okay, he can work with that, and pulls his t-shirt over his head. 

Things get very quickly and unquestionably out of control after that. Jackson is everywhere—over him, beneath him, around him. Stiles can’t inhale without Jackson’s stupid aftershave filling his lungs; he can’t move without some part of him touching Jackson’s body.

They make quick work of it and, although it’s not a particularly thorough work, Stiles doesn’t have any complaints with the way Jackson presses their hips together, pushing Stiles back into the mattress. He breathes against the curve of Jackson’s neck, one hand clutching the sheets while the other grabs the back of Jackson’s undone jeans.

Stiles moans, tiny and desperate, as their hips align and slide together. Jackson finds his mouth again when Stiles is almost sure he can’t hold on much longer, but Jackson’s whispers into the kiss, “Not yet," and Stiles is more than happy to oblige.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next on _Never Take Friendship Personal_ : 
> 
> Fluff. Fluff all around. Stackson, Allydia, all of it. Stiles and Lydia being the best of friends, Allison and Jackson watching those two goof around... and a baby on the way! Oh, my. Don't kill me. 
> 
> Also, Papa Argent being the sweetest badass in existence.
> 
> Soon! ;-)


	15. the end of the line + epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story kind of got away from me after a while, I know, and I'm sorry. After a lot of inconsistency and craziness, here it is. It's a bit wordy and not beta-read, so you might find some mistakes. I apologize in advance.
> 
> I thank you all for the support - comments, kudos, bookmarks, everything. I wouldn't do this if it weren't for you. Thank you. Now I shall move on to greener pastures, which is some more Stackson I've been planning (and writing!) for a while now.
> 
> I had a lot of fun wrapping this up, so I hope y'all like it.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> _P.S.: The Brooke character totally looks like Rachael Leigh Cook in my mind, but you're free to imagine her however you like. Also, I took some liberties with a lot of stuff, including Victoria Argent's personality._

For the most part, the house is quiet when Stiles wakes up. 

There’s the tell-tale sound of pans clinking in the distance—something Allison’s more used to hearing than he is, he thinks—and rain drizzling against the outside walls, but nothing else.

He pats the other side of the bed, hoping to find Jackson there, without luck. Lifting his upper half off the bed, Stiles stares at the rumpled sheets, and then at the clothes scattered through the room. A languid smile tugs at Stiles’ mouth at the sight and he falls back against the pillows with a sigh.

In an instant of morning laziness, he enjoys the comfort of his bed for a while longer before stepping into a pair of sweats and sticking his head out in the hall. Allison’s door creaks at the far end and he finds Lydia peeking as well, her hair sticking to her face.

“You hear that?” she says, her voice rough with sleep. 

She brushes hair out of her scrunched up face and Stiles chuckles, says, “Yeah. I hear that.”

They step into the corridor in a mutual, although silent agreement, and Stiles shakes his head when he realizes Lydia’s wearing that same old t-shirt from the day before—with nothing underneath, he mentally adds—and shorts that he recognizes as Allison’s. 

“Are those guns in your shirt or are you just happy to see me?” 

Lydia glances down at her chest, eyes narrowing. “It’s raining. I’m cold,” she says, slaps Stiles across the shoulder and proceeds to secure her chest with an arm.

Stiles chokes out a laugh and grabs her by the waist, planting a kiss on her cheek as she tries to squirm away from him. He mutters, “You’re just happy to see me. Admit it.”

She dismisses him with a quiet, “Yeah, yeah,” but pulls his hands tighter around her middle as they make their way down the stairs, her head tucked under his chin, almost tripping over themselves in their sleep-driven state. 

Allison’s laugh consumes the kitchen when they step into it. Stiles disentangles himself from Lydia and raises his eyebrows at the sight: Allison and Jackson in their underwear, covered head-to-toe in flour and with the stupidest expressions on their faces. It takes one glance between him and Lydia for them all to fall into laughter.

“Blueberry muffins!” Allison says, all but bouncing in the air, holding up the orange spatula in one hand.

“Hey, that’s mine,” Stiles says, pointing at it. Allison barely shrugs in response.

Jackson smiles at her and then sucks his thumb into his mouth, licking it clean of what seems like jam, but Stiles isn’t sure. Stiles doesn’t fight the urge to walk over there and steal a kiss, tasting blueberry and something else.

“Rum?” he asks, chuckling. “Dude, you put rum in it?”

Stiles isn’t offered an answer. Instead, when he glances over at Lydia, she holds up a bottle of rum, tipping it in Stiles’ direction in a mock salute.

“To all the teenage alcoholics.”

They all cheer and find themselves eating muffins on the kitchen counter when Jackson pulls a fresh batch out of the oven. It’s simple and appetizing, albeit lacking Stiles’ secret ingredient—and he makes sure to tell them that.

“And what is it?” Jackson asks, his forehead creased.

He sounds genuinely curious, but Stiles reaches across the counter, grabs his chin, and kisses him instead of offering an actual answer. “Love,” he says, and promptly cracks up.

Lydia makes a gagging sound and Allison laughs, choking around her hot tea. She gives Stiles a thoughtful look and then smiles, says, “Mom taught him. He hasn’t told anyone yet.”

Silence floods the room; it’s the understanding, memory-nudging type, and Stiles is overwhelmed by how much he’s missed this—sitting around, eating, drinking, joking around with the people he loves, without having to say a word.

He misses having a family that isn’t torn up to pieces; he misses his mom. She was the type of person that filled the house with her presence, be it by constantly humming her favorite songs or spreading ridiculous family photos that only she could have known existed around the house.

The family’s only now mending back together, and Stiles couldn’t be happier.

***

Their dad comes back on Sunday. The sunlight has grown to an orange glimmer, quietly coming in through the curtains.

Stiles and Allison are spread out on the couch—Stiles’ head fallen against the back and Allison’s feet on his lap while she leans against the arm—when the front door opens. They glance over at the same time, almost missing their aunt inconspicuously hidden behind their dad.

“Aunt Brooke,” Allison says, jumping up and jogging over to them. She wraps her arms around Brooke’s petite frame in a quick hug. “Is everything alright?”

“Paul and I broke up,” is all Brooke offers, with a dismissive swing of her hand. She rubs her belly, smiling. “I hope you guys don’t mind me staying here until this little guy decides to pop out.”

Stiles takes it as his cue to walk over and hug her as well, to say, “Not at all. We’ve all missed you.”

She nods, her eyes watering up. “I know I haven’t been around much lately, but with everything that’s—”

“Don’t. We know, Brooke,” their dad cuts her off, squeezing her shoulder. “Stiles will help you get set up.”

She looks up at Stiles, as if awaiting confirmation, and Stiles nods, smiles. “Yeah, ‘course. Come on, we’ll set you up in my room for now.”

Stiles gives his dad the thumbs up before excusing himself to help Brooke up the stairs. She takes short, but steady steps, stopping at the last one to let out a lengthy breath. Stiles assures her it’s not a big deal when she offers him an apologetic look, tightening his hand around hers to make his point.

“Hormones,” she tells him, wiping a tear from one eye. “I’m a total mess.”

Stiles doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t. He opens the door to his room for her, and pulls his desk chair out while he gathers the clothes and candy wrappers from the floor.

“Cool room. I like the posters.”

Stiles lets out a breathy laugh when he spots a condom wrapper on the floor, trying to sneak it into his pocket as discreetly as he can. He clears his throat, says, “Uh, thanks.”

He’s almost sure he’s managed to get away with murder, but then he looks up to find her giving him a funny look. He opens his mouth to try and come up with an excuse, but she’s faster than him, “At least you’re using it,” she says with a chuckle, pointing at her belly. Almost as an afterthought, she adds, “Lucky girl.”

Stiles has thought up of an entire scenario to play out in case something even remotely like this happened, but his brain decides to fail him and he stutters a whole lot of nonsense at her.

“Or not.” Her eyes widen, as if she’s just processed the thought. “No way. Are you serious?”

“Please, don’t tell dad,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “I haven’t told him yet.”

Brooke squeaks, completely ignoring him, “Is he cute? Oh, my God. I need to meet him. Is he from school? Are you two _dating_ dating or—?”

Stiles glances up at the ceiling, blinks a few times and sighs before sagging to the floor and giving in to her questions.

***

Brooke makes the house more alive during the week.

She’s the most upbeat Stiles has ever seen her. She cooks breakfast in the mornings; insists on driving them to and from school, switching between his and Allison’s car; makes dinner, dessert, and burns a few s’mores in the fireplace before they all settle on the couch for a late-night movie session. 

Stiles is only half-afraid she’ll let something slip between a meal and another, but it’s like she never learned about it in the first place. Around his dad, that is. Other than that, whenever Stiles receives a text from Jackson or an unrelated call from Lydia, she drapes herself over him to try and find out all the juicy details.

She doesn’t find any—Stiles doesn’t let her—but it’s not from lack of trying. She reminds him of his mom sometimes, especially in the way she strides around the house whistling Bon Jovi under her breath or doesn’t know how to google something on the computer. 

It makes him smile; it fills a part of him that’s been empty for a while.

***

Brooke is having a particularly bad day on Tuesday.

She’s sitting between Stiles and Allison on the porch, legs stretched out over wood, bag of chips in her lap, and she’s talking mostly about things Stiles doesn’t listen. She must have picked up on this, because Stiles receives a pinch to the side not long after.

“I’m craving barbecue.”

Stiles stops typing up Finstock’s project—God, wasn’t he supposed to have finished that already?—to look down at her. “Barbecue?”

“Yeah, barbecue,” she says, shrugs. “You know, meat on a grill. Lots o’ cold beer—not for me, mind you. _Friends_ coming over.”

She nudges Stiles’ side with her elbow. Allison snorts.

“I’m going to kill both of you. Very slowly.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Brooke argues, throwing her hands up in the air. “But hey, would you prefer boyfriend? Significant other? Friend with benefits?”

“Significant other?” Stiles says, chuckles. “I can’t even say that with a straight face; what are we, forty?”

“Well, I am. I mean, almost,” Brooke says. “Five years to go.”

Stiles exhales, shaking his head, and steals a chip.

***

“Rise and shine!”

Stiles turns in his bed, hiding under the covers, but Brooke taps him twice on the leg and then pulls the covers down to his feet. Stiles groans and tries to pull it back up without success, earning a pinch to the side in return.

“You know,” he says into his pillow, with a groan, “someone’s gonna think those are hickeys if you don’t stop doing that.”

There’s a snort. 

“As if. Stop being such a wuss and get up. You’ve got stuff to do.”

Stiles rolls over, covering his eyes to block the sunlight, and opens his mouth to complain, but Brooke’s already gone.

“She’s something else, isn’t she?” 

Stiles props himself up on his elbows to find Allison leaning against the doorframe, arms folded across her chest and a smile on her face. He smiles back and rubs his eyes before nodding, laughing. 

“Yeah,” he says, sitting up, “she is.”

Allison leaves with a small laugh and Stiles follows her after he’s presentable—and awake—enough. He finds them sitting around the dining table, each with a piece of paper in hand. 

“Good, you’re awake,” Brooke tells him, waving a piece of paper in his direction. “Here, take this.”

After reading through all of it, they split up. Allison gets started on the non-alcoholic drinks; dad and Scott set up the picnic table and start looking for extra chairs to seat everybody; Brooke and Jackson—against Stiles’ will, but she already knew that, didn’t she?—go out to buy the conveniently forgotten meat while he and Lydia prep the desserts.

“She’s nicer than I remember,” Lydia wonders out loud, chopping up slices of pineapple for the fruit salad. 

Stiles smiles with fondness, despite Brooke’s whole scheme to get Jackson alone with her for a couple of hours, and nods. “Yeah, she’s—”

“Here, try this,” Lydia interrupts, stuffing his mouth with something that has the texture of mango but tastes like passion fruit. 

Stiles chews past his surprise. Lydia raises her eyebrows, urging some kind of response from him, and Stiles frowns.

“’The hell was that?” 

Lydia smirks and goes back to chopping pineapples. “Trade secret,” she says.

***

Brooke and Jackson come back a little after ten, a dozen grocery bags in hand and giggling like two school girls. Stiles narrows his eyes and throws a piece of strawberry at them.

“Hey, kid, that’s edible food you’re wasting,” Brooke says, catching the strawberry before it can fall to the floor and eating it. She chews for a moment and then raises her eyebrows. “This tastes like passion fruit.”

Stiles shakes his head. Of course that’s what she’s worried about. “That would be Lydia’s doing,” he says.

He can almost hear the smirk on Lydia’s face. “Good, isn’t it?”

“So good.”

Stiles resists the urge to grab Jackson’s face and kiss him when Jackson comes around to steal a spoonful of Lydia’s fruit salad. Jackson, as if reading his thoughts, squeezes his waist and leaves his hand there for a second too long before smirking and disappearing outside.

Brooke follows suit, but not without giving Stiles a wink and a thumbs-up. “He’s amazing,” she whisper-shouts to him. “ _And_ gorgeous.”

Stiles’ only response is a smile, and then he’s back to dessert duty. He and Lydia wrap it up just after noon, which is when people start showing up. Lydia changes clothes and does her hair in record time—Stiles is sure he barely had time to put the salad in the fridge before he turned around and found her in a short, flowery dress and perfect hair—and goes right to the door with a tray of Allison’s various smoothies.

He joins her for a moment, mostly to tell people there was a hiccup in the meat department, and then rushes to his bedroom to change. He’s about to button up his shirt when there’s a knock on the door and Jackson comes in, locking it behind him.

Jackson lowers his lips to Stiles’ more gently than Stiles was expecting, his arms snaking up around Stiles’ back. Stiles opens his mouth without Jackson having to ask for it, moaning when Jackson’s tongue meets his. They pull away for air and he scrapes his teeth against the curve of Jackson’s lower lip, biting into skin until Jackson gives him a little shove.

“Sorry.”

Jackson shakes his head, running his tongue over the indent Stiles’ teeth left on him, and steals another kiss before he leaves.

***

The wind is cold enough to dance on the line of discomfort by the time Allison finds time to sit and breathe for a moment. Jackson settles on the stool beside her and drapes his leather jacket over her naked shoulders.

She smiles, mouthing him a silent thanks, and catches a glimpse of Stiles and Lydia bent over a bush, empty jars in hand. Bumping her shoulder into Jackson, she nods in the general of the two and waits for his reaction.

Jackson’s expression goes from amused, to surprised and to confused in the stretch of a second. His eyes narrow, as if he were trying to tell what Stiles and Lydia are poking with their respective sticks, but then he shakes his head in confusion.

“’The hell are they doing?”

“Trying to catch bugs,” Allison offers. Jackson gives her an even more puzzled look. “They had this thing when they were kids—a lab. They caught all sorts of stuff and catalogued them.”

Jackson seems stumped for words, but then he shakes his head, smiling, and adds, “I’d rather sit here and do nothing, thank you very much.”

Allison smiles back, her eyes trailing back to Stiles and Lydia. Lydia reaches up to run a hand on her face and ends up with a patch of dirt running from her left cheek to her jaw, which makes Stiles double over laughing. He then licks his thumb and tries to rub it off, but only manages to smudge it further.

“It’s not funny, Stiles,” says Lydia, voice barely above the quiet chatter that consumes the house and backyard. 

Both Allison and Jackson chuckle at the scene and it seems to grab Lydia’s attention. Lydia shakes her head at them and then rolls her eyes, flinging her thumb in Stiles’ direction as Stiles drapes himself over her arched back, arms circling her shoulders.

A smile breaks on Lydia’s face, then. She accepts a kiss on the cheek and gives one back to Stiles, leaving a red imprint on Stiles’ jawline. Stiles chooses that moment to catch sight of Allison. He mimics Lydia’s eye-roll and then blows her a few kisses.

It’s been a good day, Allison thinks as she lets her head fall against Jackson’s shoulder. A very good day.

***

As well as Lydia and Jackson, Scott and his mom stick around to help clean up and, while the others are picking up trash and moving furniture back in their original place, he and Stiles are left with the easiest duty there is: to gather leftovers and stick them in the fridge.

Too bad Scott decides to ruin it.

Between bites of a burnt chicken wing, Scott asks, “So, what’s the deal between you and Jackson?”

Stiles almost, almost wishes Scott would choke on that damned piece of chicken. He spins around and grabs a large Tupperware full of potato salad, contemplates what he should do with it: throw it at Scott’s head (which seems like a viable option) or stick it in the fridge like he was told to.

Taking a breath, he settles on the latter, says, “Deal? What deal?”

“I’ve seen you.”

Stiles hates Scott for not finishing that sentence. Seen you what? Make out in the locker room, fool around in Finstock’s office, flirt over a piece of sandwich in the cafeteria—what?

“At practice,” Scott amends after Stiles’ mind has already run wild. “You play well off each other.”

“Oh.”

“So?”

Stiles blinks. “So what?”

“I thought you hated him. He put you in the hospital.”

“I do, sometimes, and he did,” Stiles says, but doesn’t complete the thought. Scott goes quiet for a moment, but when Stiles meets his eyes again, he smiles, nods. 

Scott opens his mouth to speak when there’s the sound of something getting knocked over. They exchange a quick look before running towards it and finding Melissa carrying Brooke over as best as she can, a wet trail behind them.

“Boys, we need to get to the hospital,” Melissa says, her voice urgent. “Now.”

Thank God for premature babies.

***

It’s been a little over an hour since Brooke was taken in by Melissa and two other nurses. She’d been screaming obscenities the entire ride there, her voice growing rougher around the edges; by the time they got there, Stiles wasn’t sure she even had a voice anymore.

Stiles closes his eyes and lets his head thump against the wall, exhaustion taking over him the worst possible way. Allison slides against his side, her head falling into the crook of his neck as her hand grows limp between his. The lull of her breathing almost eases him into sleep, but Melissa’s voice jolts him awake.

“Is she alright?” is the first thing his dad asks, jumping to his feet.

Melissa smiles. “Yes, and she had a beautiful, healthy baby boy.”

Cheers erupt between them and they all hug each other, including Lydia and Jackson. They cram into the room Brooke’s in when they’re finally allowed to, and his dad is the first to hold the baby. The three of them surround him, cooing at the little guy in his arms.

“That’s Victor,” Brooke says after a second.

His dad’s smile falter a little, his eyes clouded with unshed—probably unwanted, Stiles thinks—tears. Then, he repeats, “Victor,” almost to himself, and cradles Victor a little closer. “Victor.”

Stiles finds Allison’s hand and squeezes it hard, smiling tears away. He turns to Brooke, giving her a small nod, and says, “Mom would love him.”

Brooke smiles back, wiping at the corner of one eye. “I know,” she tells him. “I know she would.”

***

As it turns out, having a newborn at home is not the easiest of tasks.

Victor cries at ungodly hours of the night, turns into a little poop machine after his meals, pees whenever Stiles tries to pick him up, and refuses to fall asleep if there’s even a hint of a strange sound in the house.

Still, he and Allison seem to turn into mush whenever Victor decides to move his little fingers and wrap them around their thumbs. Brooke encourages them to pick him up and play with him until he’s tired, and usually that means that she will fall asleep against the nearest piece of furniture that’ll hold her weight.

They don’t mind, but she doesn’t abuse of their goodwill. If either Jackson or Lydia is around, she’ll offer to go on a stroll with him or take him up to the nursery-slash-guest room. 

Lydia seems to be the one Victor’s fondest of; he’ll snuggle up to her chest and fall asleep like magic, and Brooke sometimes takes advantage of that. Stiles doesn’t know what it is—if it’s the sight of Lydia’s dimpled smile, or the way she whispers things in his ear—that lulls him to sleep, but everyone is grateful for that.

Jackson doesn’t come near him; something about not being very good with kids and not wanting to get his shirt burped on. Stiles can only smile whenever Lydia tries to pass Victor along to Jackson—she’ll say, “He’s sleeping. It’s not like he’s gonna do anything, Jackson,” and roll her eyes—and he takes a step back, shoulders brushing up against Stiles’. Lydia gives up after a few unsuccessful tries, and Jackson seems to be grateful for that. 

As days pass, Stiles tries to spend as much time as he can with Jackson without his dad figuring out what’s actually going on. Jackson, when he comes back from school with Stiles, does it with the pretext of a group project or seeing Allison. Stiles’ dad gives him death stares more often than not, but Stiles suspects it’s more about Jackson being a prick than about Jackson sleeping with his son, which Stiles is pretty sure he hasn’t figured out yet.

They find a better excuse, eventually: lacrosse. Finstock insists on them having early morning practices every other day, which, despite giving Stiles bags under his eyes, is the perfect opportunity to see more of Jackson without raising many flags.

Scott and Danny are the only ones who look at him as if he’s grown another head whenever he arrives with Jackson by his side. He tries not to give it much thought, at first, but it’s hard not to think about it when he and Jackson go on morning runs _together_ , have breakfast _together_ , arrive at practice _together_ , and stay _together_ at the locker room after everyone has left.

They fall into a cycle and Stiles makes no effort to get out of it, even though one afternoon, after class, Danny corners him and asks him if he’s screwing Jackson—and manages to look completely serious as he does so, which thrashes any possibility of Stiles playing it off as a joke. He does try, but then he’s the only one laughing and Danny is _still_ staring at him.

Stiles bites down onto his lower lip and glances over his shoulder before giving in with a sigh, “Fine. Yes. I’m—”

“Goddammit!”

Stiles doesn’t get to finish his thought as Scott emerges from a classroom and shoves a twenty in Danny’s hand. Danny smiles, dimples firmly in place and eyebrows flying up as if to say _I knew it!_ and Scott lets out a disheartened cry again.

Stiles narrows his eyes at them, words failing him for a moment. “You didn’t,” he accuses.

Scott throws his puppy dog eyes Stiles’ way and Stiles shifts from one foot to another, shaking his head while Danny chuckles. 

That is not how Stiles expected people finding out. He expected getting shitfaced at a party, entering a stupid truth or dare game, ending up stuck in a closet with Jackson for a thirty-second make-out session—Lydia’s dare, of course—that would totally blow that time limit to shreds because they’ve done this before and they like it and, after ten minutes, everyone would know because they’d come out red-faced and with their shirts swapped. 

This is something else entirely. If Scott, of all people, is betting on his sex life, who else is?

***

Jackson calls him when he’s sprawled on his bed, back against the sheets, ignoring Scott’s apology text for about two hours now. It doesn’t take long for Jackson to realize that something’s wrong, and Stiles doesn’t want to answer when he asks what it is.

“Spill, Argent.”

“They know,” Stiles offers, rolling onto his side to stare at the wall, “Scott and Danny. They know about us.”

He doesn’t get a response right away. Instead, he’s met with a long silence, followed by a lackluster, “Oh.”

“ _Oh_? That’s all you have to say?” It comes out more aggressive than he intended, but he doesn’t change his tone when he adds, “Everyone’s going to find out. You do realize that, right? My _dad’s_ going to find out.”

“I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

“You don’t see how that’s—?” Stiles can’t finish the sentence. He sits up, hand tightening around his phone. “It’s your fucking problem, Jackson. You should be running to the hills right now, because there is no way in hell my dad’s gonna let us keep doing this.”

“Bullshit. You’re just scared, Argent. Admit it. You’d rather keep pretending you’re dating Lydia, because Lydia’s safe. Lydia’s the pretty little girl next door and you can’t handle anything beyond that.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck _you_ , Jackson. You’re the one who _pretended_ to date my sister in the first place,” Stiles throws back, his voice raising before he realizes it might be a bad idea.

“That was different.”

“Different how?”

“I was trying to help her out, Stiles. That’s it. You—” Jackson stops talking, as if he ran out of breath. There’s some noise in the background before he adds, coldly, “You’re just trying to help yourself.”

Stiles opens his mouth to protest, but he’s too late. He lets his phone fall to the mattress, the words _call ended_ mocking him as a knot grows in his throat. A knock in his door makes him snap his head up, but he doesn’t move. He knows who it is and Allison knows silence is as good an invitation as any.

She slides the door open and places one foot inside his room, as if testing the waters, and a sense of dread and stupor rolls in Stiles’ gut. For a moment, he doesn’t know whether he’s going to laugh, cry, or be sick. 

They don’t say a word. Allison moves in three long strides and kneels before his bed, an inviting hand closing around his knee and squeezing hard. Stiles blinks through the sting in his eyes and chokes out an unintelligible word. Allison’s grip falters along with Stiles’ breathing, but then she’s up on her feet, hand stretched out to him.

He reaches over to grab it and she leads the way downstairs and into the gunroom. Her eyes skim over the accessorized walls, stopping on a compound bow Stiles knows Allison is particularly fond of. 

“You like to bake,” Allison says as she walks over to grab the bow, her back to him. Stiles doesn’t respond, not knowing what to say. “I like _this_. I like this because it makes me feel strong. I feel powerful and in control.”

“I know, Al.”

“Good. I want you to feel that,” she tells him and throws the bow in his direction.

Time seems to slow down as Stiles sees it coming at him. He reaches out with a hand to protect his face but his fingers seem to act on their own, wrapping around the bow handle in one swift motion.

Allison smiles, her eyebrows shooting up. Stiles looks at the bow and then back at her. “Did that just happen?” he asks, his heart racing.

She shakes her head in response, grabbing a handful of arrows from a drawer and nodding toward the backdoor. Stiles follows her outside, bow in hand. Allison gives him an arrow and drops the rest on the ground, next to his feet, before walking over to a tree.

“Al, what are you doing?”

“Nock the arrow,” she tells him, simply. 

Stiles stares at her, chewing on the inside of his cheek until it dawns on him: “I’m not going to shoot you.”

“I know you won’t.” She positions herself—arms loose against her side, chin up—and licks her lips. “You remember how to do it, right? Nock the arrow.”

Swallowing, Stiles picks up the bow and places his hand on the grip, drawing the string back with his dominant one. Allison’s face is a blur as he glances at her, but he can see the trace of a smile on her lips.

“Breathe.”

“Breathe,” Stiles echoes her, counting to three under his breath.

He draws the string again, harder this time, and tries to relax his grip on the handle. He keeps counting every breath until Allison comes into focus, but his fingers are shaking as he holds the string in place; the muscles in his back are starting to sting.

“Al—”

“ _Breathe_ ,” she tells him again, more firmly this time. “You can do this.”

He’s not sure that he can, but there’s a gleam in Allison’s eyes that makes his breath catch in his throat. Before he can let that breath go, the string bounces back into place and the arrow flies into the tree an inch above Allison’s head. 

“Shit.”

Stiles’ knees grow weak and he lets the bow fall, hunching over to keep from collapsing himself. Allison lets out an uncharacteristic squeal and jumps on his back, arms lacing around his neck, but Stiles can’t keep his balance. They tumble to the ground with a thud, mud staining their clothes as they roll over laughing. 

“Thanks, Al,” Stiles says after their laughter fades into the background. He twists his neck to the side, turning to look at her, and she smiles.

Her hand touches the back of his and stays there. “Anytime.”

***

The next day at lunch, Scott drops by Stiles’ table to apologize and ends up staying there for the entire period.

Stiles is grateful when Allison decides to lead the conversation with him, despite their history, and drag Lydia along. Stiles stays silent, only half-listening to the three of them talk about the game next week as his attention wanders to Jackson, sitting one table over from them.

“Dude, are you even listening?”

Stiles blinks twice, lifting his eyebrows as he turns his attention back to Scott. “Huh?”

“Never mind.” Scott glances over his shoulder and then shakes his head. “You two break up?”

“Dude, sssh!” Stiles reaches across the table to punch Scott on the shoulder when he notices Jackson slightly turning his head to listen. “Shut up,” he whispers, drooping against his seat in case Scott decides to embarrass him some more.

“Sorry.”

Lydia rolls her eyes. “They’re just having a thing because Stiles is an idiot.”

“How am I an idiot?”

“The only reason you’re fighting in the first place is because you can’t come out of your metaphorical closet, Stiles.”

“That’s not it,” Stiles argues, trying to keep his voice barely above a whisper, and before he realizes, he adds, “I don’t see _you_ running around telling the world either.”

“No way.” Scott’s eyes widen as he looks at Lydia and Allison. Lydia gives him a little shrug and Allison facepalms. “Why are all my friends gay?”

“I’m not gay!” Stiles protests, just as every single person in that cafeteria chooses to stop talking. All eyes turn to him, including Jackson’s, and he slumps further into his seat, almost falling off it and under the table.

Heat creeps up Stiles’ cheeks as the silence stretches and he freezes on the spot. It’s as if his body enters fight or flight mode and glitches before making a decision. Whispers starting floating around, a quiet chatter at first, but he can tell it won’t stay that way for long. 

At that moment, Allison rises from her seat, pulling at Lydia’s arm, and Lydia does the same, although haphazardly. Allison gives him a reassuring look before turning to Lydia and taking her by the chin to plant a kiss square on her mouth. 

The room goes quiet again before it erupts into a cheer. As they break apart, all eyes aren’t on Stiles anymore—except for Jackson’s. Stiles goes after him when he stands and starts walking away, but as Stiles goes through the double doors and into the hallway, Jackson is nowhere to be seen.

***

Stiles uses Allison and Lydia’s little show as shield of the remainder of the day. He catches his name here and there between a class and another, but it’s not enough that makes him need to vanish for an entire week, so he doesn’t.

Jackson, on the other hand, doesn’t show up for the entire week. Stiles tries calling, texting, and leaving ridiculous voice messages—nothing. It’s like he never even existed. The only other person to voice their discontentment with that is Finstock (and, to a lesser extent, his dad, but Stiles wouldn’t exactly use _discontentment_ to describe his dad’s feelings towards it.)

“Can someone tell me where the hell is Whittemore?” Finstock shrieks at morning practice on Monday, after a deafening whistle. He points his whistle at Scott. “McCall!”

“Uh,” Scott says, uselessly, looking over at Stiles for support. “No, coach. I don’t know where Jackson is.”

Finstock nods before giving his whistle a blow right in Scott’s ear. Scott blinks a few times before sitting down, looking like he might faint. 

“You, Argent!” Finstock walks over to Stiles, clutching his shoulder. A few eyes turn Stiles’ way and Stiles looks down at his feet. “You’re all buddy-buddy with Whittemore, aren’t you?”

There are a few giggles at that, but Stiles chooses to ignore them. “No, coach. I’m not.”

Finstock lets go of Stiles’ shoulder with a shake of his head. “Useless,” he says, walking away. “You’re all useless.”

“Hey, man,” Scott says to Stiles once the team starts walking out to the field. “You alright?”

Stiles shrugs, taking a seat on the bench next to Scott. “I’m fine.”

“Is he gone for good?”

“I’ve no idea,” Stiles offers, letting the back of his head fall against the locker. “Can’t win this game without him, can we?”

“I guess we can try,” Scott tells him, but it sounds more like a question than an affirmation, and all it does is make Stiles feel guilty.

Sighing, Stiles pats Scott on the back and stands. “C’mon, man. I think we need to practice if we’re gonna at least try and win this Friday.”

Finstock gives the two of them three extra laps around the field for coming out late. By the time they’re done with all thirteen laps, they fall down into a heap in the grass, Scott’s legs underneath Stiles’ back.

Out of breath, Scott ponders, “I don’t think we can win this game.”

Stiles can’t do anything other than agree.

***

Stiles stands at Jackson’s door, his back to it as he watches the sky turn into smudges of pink and orange while the sun sets in the horizon. It happens fast—night surrounds him before he can work up the courage to ring the bell, knock on the door, or even call Jackson to let him know that he’s there.

The Porsche sits alone in the driveway, silently mocking Stiles as he calls Jackson on his phone and hangs up before the third ring. It’s not like Jackson would pick up; he hasn’t in a while. So, what’s the point?

Stiles chews onto his bottom lip, walking around Jackson’s house to see if he can catch something through a window without seeming like a creep. He hears some shuffling as he peeks through one particularly hard-to-reach window, but he learns that it’s not _inside_ the house as a hand lands heavily on his shoulder, bringing him falling to the ground.

“Can I help you?”

Stiles scrambles to his feet faster than he can blink, patting dirt off his clothes, and coughs out a, “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I was just—”

“Do I need to call the police?”

“Nope. No,” Stiles says, scratching his head. “Absolutely not. I just wanted to know if, uh, Jackson was home.” He points at his phone. “He’s not answering my calls, or the door.”

The man gives him a once-over before nodding halfheartedly. “I’m his father, David. Is he expecting you?”

 _Oh, shit,_ Stiles thinks. He shifts his weight from one foot to another, trying to think of a good answer to that that isn’t outright lying.

“He, uh—” Stiles stutters. “He wasn’t expecting me _tonight_.”

Jackson’s dad nods again, still hesitant. “I’ll let him know you’re here,” he says, and Stiles doesn’t blame him for not inviting him in.

Stiles shoves his hands inside his pockets and nods, muttering a quiet, “Thank you.” 

Not long after David goes inside, he hears the door creak open again. Jackson’s face goes from surprised to sour in a matter of milliseconds when he sees Stiles.

“Did someone die?” Jackson asks him, arching an eyebrow.

“What? No—”

“Then what the hell are you doing here?”

Stiles flinches at the toxicity of Jackson’s tone. He takes a step back, distancing himself from Jackson as much as he can, and licks his lips as he stares down at his feet. 

He doesn’t raise his eyes when he says, “I—I need—” but can’t finish the thought. Looking up, he sees the lines of Jackson’s face soften. “The team needs you, man. We can’t win without you.”

Jackson’s eyes darken again and Stiles mentally kicks himself as a muscle jumps in Jackson’s jaw. 

“The team.”

It sounds like an accusation. It _hurts_ like an accusation, and Stiles is torn between spitting something back or just walking away. He finds that he can’t do either, eventually, because his brain can’t come up with anything and his body doesn’t seem to want to move.

He watches for a reaction—a flinch, a sigh, anything—but Jackson just stares back at him, unmoving. Stiles wants to be the first one to move, to either punch Jackson or kiss him, but Jackson steps away before he’s able to.

“Go home, Stiles,” is all he says, but he doesn’t turn around. Instead, he keeps stepping back until he’s standing by the door, his eyes fixed on Stiles.

Stiles glances down and, by the time he looks back up, Jackson’s gone.

***

Allison and Brooke stop by his room to say good night before they go to sleep. Allison doesn’t comment on his appearance, choosing to just give him a little wave from where she stands at the doorway. Brooke, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have a filter.

“You look like crap, kid,” she tells him, covering Victor’s ears so he doesn’t hear.

Stiles barely makes the effort to look up from his laptop. “I know.”

“Hey, look at me.”

Brooke’s smile falters when Stiles glances up at her. She makes a small noise in the back of her throat and walks over to him, sitting at the foot of the bed. Her hand is warm when she places it on Stiles’ calf, giving it a little squeeze.

“Is everything alright? Is this about,” she says, glancing over her shoulder before finishing the sentence, “Jackson?”

Stiles groans and thumps his head against the headboard. “Am I that obvious?”

“A little.” Brooke makes a face. “Do you wanna talk about it? I just need to put this little guy to bed, but—”

“No, no, it’s fine. You’re tired. I’m alright.”

“You sure? I’m already here.”

Stiles nods, teeth sinking into his lower lip before he reassures her, “Yeah, I’m sure. Go get some rest.”

Brooke nods back. Before she leaves, she stops by the door, a faint but warm smile on her lips, and says, “You’re one of a kind, Stiles. Your mom was always so proud of you and Allison.” Her voice breaks at the mention of his mom, but her smile widens. Victor makes an odd sound against her chest and she chuckles. “I need to get him to his crib, but remember what your mom would’ve told you: do whatever your heart tells you to.”

After she’s gone, Stiles finds himself staring at the spot she occupied by his door. His eyes travel to the nightstand, where his phone sits in acquainted silence for a while now. Grabbing it, he tries not to think too much about it as he types: _and i need you too._

Jackson doesn’t respond right away and maybe he never will, but Stiles sleeps better than he has in an entire week.

***

“Get busy living or get busy dying. That’s goddamn right!”

Scott turns to Stiles, frowning. “Did he just—?”

Stiles nods, eyebrows almost up in his hairline. “He just quoted Shawshank Redemption to us on a game night.”

They stand there for another minute after everyone’s left, staring at the doors leading to the field. Stiles can hear the cheering outside. It bounces around like an echo and sends a shudder down his spine.

He thumps his stick against the floor and sighs. “You ready?”

Scott looks very much like an abandoned puppy, but he nods, throwing his helmet on with unsteady hands. “I’m ready.”

“Good, me too,” Stiles says, following Scott’s lead and putting his helmet in place as they walk out, “because my dad’s watching.”

Scott laughs as they step onto the grass and jog over to their respective positions. “Dude, you’re screwed.”

Stiles nods and tightens his grip around the stick. “I know,” he says, and the whistle blows.

In the first quarter alone, they have Greenberg down with a broken arm and Danny makes three saves Stiles didn’t think were possible. As the clock starts ticking for the second quarter, Stiles is sure that, even though his dad probably came in expecting nothing whatsoever, he’s going to leave disappointed.

Ten minutes into the second quarter, Stiles finds himself with the ball. Finstock is yelling at him to pass the ball, but Stiles freezes. They haven’t scored a single point and if they keep this up, they never will. He takes one look at Scott and Scott nods, signaling forward with his stick.

“You can do this,” Stiles whispers to himself as he starts running into the offensive area, yelling at the midfielders to stay back. 

He manages to dodge one guy after he crosses the midfield line, but finds himself cornered by another one twice his size and chooses to shoot the ball to the other side of the field, to Scott. Scott fumbles with it but steadies himself before he can get tackled. All eyes shift to him as he starts running, and Stiles uses the opportunity to position himself between two oblivious players.

One glance at the timer tells him Scott has less than a minute to either score or pass the ball so someone else can, but when he glances back at the field, he sees Scott tumbling to the ground in slow motion, single-handedly. Stiles almost wants to laugh _and_ cry at the same time, but the ball is coming roughly in his direction and his body moves on its own.

His ears isolate every sound for the next thirty seconds. There’s a clear path in front of him, leading straight to the goal, and he takes his chances. His heart pumps adrenaline hard and fast with every step he takes, and then it’s as if everything’s suspended in air. The ball hits the net before the goalie can move.

The crowd erupts with yelling and cheering; it’s a deafening roar, and Stiles finds his eyes scanning for his family amongst the clutter of people jumping and clapping. Brooke and his dad are hugging each other while Allison and Lydia throw their hands in the air and clap, laughing. 

Stiles can’t help but smile, throwing his hand up and pointing at them. Lydia waves at him and makes a _wait_ gesture with her hand before she and Allison grab something from behind them. _Stiles #1! We <3 you!_ says the poster, and Stiles is thankful for a chest full of Scott before his team can see him crying.

The whistle sounds, signaling the end of the second quarter. They all hurry back to the benches, where Finstock pats Stiles’ back and congratulates him.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re on, Argent, but keep doing what you’re doing,” he tells Stiles, and Stiles takes the half-assed compliment with a chuckle. 

Even Greenberg picks himself up from the bench to give Stiles a fist bump. Stiles laughs, adrenaline still pumping in his bloodstream as he takes a seat and takes his helmet off. Finstock goes through a few plays with them and the noise dies down for a moment. 

“Alright, people,” Finstock says, clasping his hands together, “we’re one man down, but—”

“No, you’re not.”

There’s a pulse of absolute silence. The team scrambles away from the circle they’d formed to make way for Jackson and Stiles’ heart speeds up after skipping a beat. A few gazes fly in his direction, including Finstock’s, and Stiles finds himself standing up as Jackson steps forward in his direction.

“I got your text,” says Jackson, dropping his stick and helmet onto the bench. His eyes are soft despite the determination in them.

Stiles doesn’t know how to react to that, but the moment Jackson’s lips widen in that cocky smirk, he can’t think of anything else to do: in two long strides, he presses himself up against Jackson’s chest and kisses him. 

The noise is louder, this time; the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears alongside the applause and whistles from the crowd makes him lightheaded. 

Jackson’s hands come to rest at his waist, pulling at his jersey as they deepen the kiss. Jackson’s tongue is just as determined as his eyes as it slides against Stiles’, slick and hot, and Stiles has to pull away before they show more P.D.A. than he’s comfortable with (not that he’s comfortable at all.)

There’s much coughing and throat-clearing from the team when they break apart. Scott is amused, while Danny seems mildly aroused and the rest of them seem perplexed. Finstock’s eyebrows are almost crossing over his hairline. He has one hand wrapped loosely around the whistle draped around his neck while the other scratches at his temple.

“You two,” he coughs up after a moment, pointing at Stiles and Jackson. “Get your asses on the field and stop… sucking each other’s faces!”

The timer restarts and indicates the beginning of the third quarter. They all run back to the field, gear in hand, and Jackson gives Stiles a quick kiss before putting his helmet on and assuming his position at the front. Stiles walks back to the defense line with Scott and puts his helmet back on, but not without glancing at the bleachers and catching sight of his dad.

It’s going to be a long night.

***

They win by a stupidly small margin, but they win.

Finstock is all smiles and happy whistles, hugging all of them in the locker room after the game and strutting around like he’s on top of the world. The room is filled with laughter and a constant chatter that makes Stiles’ chest fill with pride.

“Man, we did it,” Scott says as he takes his dirty jersey from the locker and throws it inside his bag. “I can’t believe it.”

“No thanks to you, McCall,” Jackson quips, but his smile betrays him. He bumps his shoulder into Stiles’ and steals a kiss.

“Hey, no making out in my locker room!” Finstock yells from the other side of the room, pointing at them. Stiles just stares back at him with his eyebrows raised until he sighs and adds, “Ah, what the hell. I don’t even care,” and waves them off.

Jackson rolls his eyes and smirks, shaking his head as he slips into a clean t-shirt. Stiles watches as he tries to put on his underwear without taking off the towel around his waist and frowns, chuckling.

“You know there’s nothing there we haven’t already seen, right?” Danny says after a beat, as if reading Stiles’ thoughts.

“He can’t just walk around with it hanging for everyone to see. He has a boyfriend, dude,” Scott tells Danny, dead serious. He glances at Stiles. “Right?”

Stiles throws his hands in the air, laughing. “Don’t ask me.”

Jackson throws the towel at Stiles once he’s done and glares at Scott. “Shut up, McCall.”

They finish up and Stiles heads out to the parking lot with Jackson, where they find his dad sitting on the hood of Jackson’s Porsche while Lydia, Allison, and Brooke stand beside him, looking like all hell might break loose. Jackson stops dead in his tracks and Stiles expects to find him angry, but when he glances at him, there’s a gleam of fear in his eyes. 

“Anything you want to tell me?” Stiles’ dad asks, his arms crossed above his chest. 

His icy stare drags between Stiles and Jackson as they exchange a look between them, and Stiles swallows, chewing on the inside of his cheek. 

“Anything at all?” his dad says, raising his voice. A few passersby give them a curious look. “Anything that isn’t a _lie_?”

“Dad—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Stiles. You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you. I—I just—” Stiles offers, stuttering. “I just have a very casual relationship with the truth.” 

His dad only has to narrow his eyes at him for Stiles to realize that this isn’t the time to make jokes. Sighing, he looks down at his feet, arms flailing at his sides.

“I’m sorry, alright? But I was scared. I didn’t want people,” Stiles says, pauses, “or you, to think less of me.”

“Think _less_ of you?”

“Dad, please. Just—just let me talk.” Stiles takes a breath. “I know you were in a bad place after mom, we all were, but you were never home. I didn’t know if I could talk to you or count on you not to judge me.”

“Because he’s a boy or because he’s an asshole?”

Stiles tries not to laugh at the absurdity of his dad calling Jackson an asshole. He smiles instead, shrugging his shoulders. “Both.”

He glances at Jackson to catch a reaction. Jackson glares at him, frowning, and this time Stiles can’t help but laugh. He turns his attention back to his dad after a moment, and finds that he’s being watched like an animal in a cage.

“How long has this been going on?”

“A while,” says Stiles. “It wasn’t anything serious.”

His dad nods, trailing his eyes over to Jackson. “And you and my daughter?”

Jackson opens his mouth to speak, but Allison cuts in, “That’s my fault,” she says, giving Jackson a look. “It’s complicated.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Probably not,” Stiles, Allison, Lydia, and Jackson say in unison, which makes both Stiles’ dad and Brooke raise their eyebrows.

Before the silence can stretch, Allison adds, “Lydia and I are dating.”

She says it so matter-of-factly that even Stiles is surprised by it. He gives her a questioning look and she shrugs her shoulders as if to say _what?_

Their dad frowns and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He looks back and forth between her and Stiles, as if he were trying to solve a puzzle. Stiles doesn’t blame him—they did get themselves into a mess for no reason.

He takes a look at Brooke before adding, “You knew.”

It’s not a question because it doesn’t need to be. It’s pretty much written on Brooke’s face that she knew at least part of it. 

“I knew about that,” she says, gesturing at Stiles and Jackson. Then, she waves at Lydia and Allison. “Not about this.”

Stiles watches as his dad sighs, his shoulders sagging in defeat. He rubs at his eyes and holds his fingers there for a moment, foot tapping against the asphalt. It’s a moment before he stands, but when he does, his eyes are clearer.

“Let’s eat,” he says simply, gesturing for Stiles and Jackson to come along. “I’ll lay some ground rules over dinner.”

He starts walking toward the car, but stops before hopping in to add, pointing at Jackson, “You’re riding alone.”

Jackson smiles, nodding, and replies, “Yes, sir.”

***

**

epilogue

**

Stiles doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to Christmases without his mom. She used to have a knack for decorating the entire house—from the driveway to the backyard—and it looked impeccable. It used to be a way for her to keep them all together.

The decoration is a little… unfortunate, this year, because Jackson and Lydia got relegated to it and they, to be honest, suck at it. And it’s not that they have bad taste, because they don’t, but their tastes don’t go well _together_. The house looks like a strange mix between Christmas and Mardi Gras and, while that _could_ be great, it’s not.

He doesn’t dislike anything because he’s always been fond of Christmas, but he can’t help but feel that something is missing. Brooke and Victor fill some of the void. They remind him of what Christmas is supposed to be like. 

Stiles watches, while munching on a pumpkin cinnamon muffin, as his dad and Allison put the finishing touches on the tree, which is missing its star on top because they can’t remember where it is. Brooke is sitting next to him on the couch, Jackson and Lydia kneeling on the floor before her as Lydia tries to convince Jackson to, “Just hold the baby.”

“Fine, but if he burps on me, I swear to God, Martin,” Jackson says, and Stiles has to stop eating to watch it. 

Jackson’s face melts when he picks Victor up from Brooke’s lap and stands to take a stroll around the living room with him. Jackson makes small cooing noises at Victor and Stiles chuckles at the sight. Jackson will probably blame it on the eggnog later.

Lydia runs over to her purse and comes back with her phone in hand. “Say hi, Jackson,” she says, pointing the phone at him.

“See, he’s not so bad,” Brooke tells him as Victor snuggles up against his shoulder. She laughs. “Just a little.”

Then, it happens. Stiles is glad that Lydia is filming it, because the look on Jackson’s face is somewhere in-between amazement and disgust. 

They all erupt into laughter as Jackson holds Victor away from him. Allison and his dad come running to see what the fuss is about. Brooke goes over to help, taking Victor back and trying to shush him as he starts crying from all the noise. 

Lydia can barely hold the phone up as she doubles over laughing, wiping at the corners of her eyes. Jackson mutters something under his breath and starts unbuttoning his shirt, careful not to get the result of Victor’s burp anywhere near his skin.

“I’m going to kill all of you,” he huffs, shrugging the shirt off his shoulders and handing it to Stiles’ dad, who reassures Jackson that not all is lost before patting him on the back.

Jackson’s entire face contorts into a pout. Stiles feels obligated to go there and comfort him, his arms wrapping around Jackson’s naked waist as Jackson drops his head on Stiles’ shoulder, laughing.

After Stiles’ dad comes back with a clean shirt for Jackson, they all sit around the living room with muffins and more eggnog in hand. Lydia launches into a drunken Christmas carol after three mugs and Allison sings along after a while.

Stiles might just get used to this after all.

**end**


End file.
